“If we had information about what the true costs are—the true expenses—were for the refiners, what they were charging wholesale and what our families end up paying at the pump, we could make a decision in the state: Does it make sense for us to offer tax credits for someone to build a terminal in Kahului on Maui or in West Hawai`i on the Big Island, because that would inject more competition into those markets.”
And in her energy plan, as outlined in a Jan. 13, 2006 Honolulu Advertiser story:
“[I would] Require oil companies to submit price, product and profit data to help determine whether gas prices are fair. Use the information for an index that would give consumers more information about pricing.”
What she didn’t say:
That apparently she had no intention of asking the oil companies to actually do the things she said they wanted them to do. An Oct. 11, 2006 Advertiser story says the state has done absolutely nothing in the last five months to enforce the law requiring Big Oil to make public financial details about gas prices. In that time, Lingle’s done little except continue to tell the public that she wants more transparency, even though the fact that Big Oil has long given her thousands of dollars in campaign contributions would seem to indicate Lingle has considerable access to the industry. True to form, Lingle’s office insists that the fault lay with the state Legislature, which hasn’t authorized any money to enforce the law, even though as the Advertiser points out, the state Public Utilities Commission has all along had $700,000 to do exactly that.
-Anthony Pignataro
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