Getting rid of zone gas pricing has been in the works for quite a while. Despite broad consumer support, the legislation banning the practice died in committee, notably featuring only one legislator who resides in a district most affected by the practice. Today’s Norwalk Advocate explains:

A bill that would ban gasoline zone pricing, an oil company practice that hikes prices at stations such as those in lower Fairfield County, died in a legislative committee yesterday.

The General Law Committee voted 12-7 to defeat the bill, which would have stopped oil companies from charging different wholesale prices to gas station owners based on the geographic area. Instead, all owners would have bought gasoline at the same rate, allowing the market to determine the retail price.

“That’s a tremendous blow to consumers in Connecticut, particularly Fairfield County,” state Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, said after the vote.

For a decade, Connecticut lawmakers have wrestled with such a measure, and the oil companies have lobbied against it.

State Sen. Thomas Colapietro, D-Bristol, co-chairman of the General Law Committee, yesterday said he could not be certain that banning zone pricing would slash prices at the pump.

“Do I know it’s going to lower prices? No, I don’t,” Colapietro said. “I know it’s not going to raise it. It can’t get much worse.”

He urged his colleagues to give the bill a chance and offered to let the law end in two years if it did not have the intended effect. But that did not sway lawmakers who said they were concerned the ban would unintentionally cost motorists more.

Motorists in lower Fairfield County pay 15 cents to 20 cents more per gallon than the rest of the state. Gas in Connecticut is cheaper along the borders with Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where prices are competitive.

State Rep. John Ryan, R-Darien, the only lawmaker from southwestern Connecticut who is on the committee, voted for the zone pricing ban but did not weigh in during debate on the bill yesterday.

Brian Lockhart’s artcile goes on to explain that the committee members who voted against the bill relied on a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C.

Source: Norwalk Advocate, Zone pricing ban dies in committee, By Brian Lockhart, March 14 2007