Sep 12
Five-Dollar Gas? Not So Fast!
The gas station I normally buy from adjusted its price per gallon by about twenty cents amid the sudden panic that there would be no more gas because of Ike. But several gas stations around South Carolina decided to take advantage of the opporunity and reportedly raise their prices above the $5.00 mark.
But now South Carolina’s attorney general is on the case. A little-known law in South Carolina allows the attorney general to prosecute businesses for price gouging any time an emergency is declared (even in another state) by the president. Bush declared emergencies in Texas and Louisiana last night.
This law comes into play if a commodity’s price might be affected by some sort of emergency situation, and targets businesses who raise prices too high. There was no concrete definition provided for what makes a price high enough for prosecution, but if I owned a gas station and I raised the price per gallon by a buck or more in a single day, yeah, I’d be worried.
