SBH Sunrise
November 17, 2005
Garvey & Gramann

Friday, November 4
Grassroot Institute
of Hawaii Awards
Hale Koa Hotel
5:30 - 9 pm

Tuesday, November 15
Aiea-Pearl City Business Assoc.
Pearl Country Club
Noon - 1:30pm

Wednesday, November 16
SBH Board Meeting
SBH Office 12 noon

Thursday, November 17
SBH Sunrise Networking
Garvey & Gramann
Macy's Pineapple Room
7 - 8:30 am

SBH TV
Sundays 7:00 pm
Channel 54

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Motorists line up at SBH member Lex Brodie's Queen Street location for "Fast Gas".

Total Cost of Gas Cap: $15 Million and Counting

by State Rep. Lynn Finnegan
House Minority Leader

On Oct. 13, 2005, the gas cap raised Hawaii’s gas price an average 52 cents a gallon above what gas would have cost without the cap.

The House Minority Caucus’ seventeenth daily report on the gas cap’s cost to Hawaii’s consumers shows that over the 41 day period since the gas cap began Sept. 1, Hawaii consumers have paid an extra $14.7 million for gasoline.

And the cost rises daily.

In the period since the gas cap began Sept. 1, AAA data shows that the difference between gas price increases in Washington and Oregon on one hand (up 3 cents a gallon from Sept. 1’s average of $2.80 gallon), and Hawaii’s gasoline price increase on the other (up 55 cents from $2.95 a gallon on Sept. 1) works out to 52 cents a gallon. Thus, 52 cents a gallon represents the gas cap’s current actual cost to Hawaii consumers.

Washington and Oregon, like Hawaii, buy most of their oil from Asia and Alaska. All three states import practically no oil from Gulf ports or anywhere else on the mainland.

This means consumers in Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii would be looking at nearly identical price increases since September 1, if there were no gas cap.

Hawaii’s gas cap is based on Gulf port and New York prices, prices severely affected by events in the Eastern U.S.

For that reason, Hawaii’s gas price has increased 55 cents a gallon from the time the gas cap began Sept. 1, or 52 cents above Washington-Oregon’s 3 cents price increase.

Of course Washington and Oregon’s prices, unlike Hawaii’s, are unaffected by Eastern U.S. gasoline prices.

If we got rid of the gas cap and its imposition of East and Gulf Coast prices on our gasoline, today’s Hawaii gas price could drop by 47 cents a gallon.