Regulatory Reform

Gas and politics: A volatile mixture In this piece from the National Post, AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley speculates that the political attractiveness of being seen to "do something" about high gasoline prices, and jockeying for short-term political advantage in an unstable minority legislature, may mean that Nova Scotia's Dooks Committee will try to mix gasoline and politics. His conclusion? “Stand well back when that Molotov cocktail meets the white hot anger of consumers and voters who will see all too well who pays and who benefits. I can just see the bumper stickers now: We've been Dooked!”

AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley's warning that the NS legislature's Standing Committee on gasoline prices is considering regulatory changes that will increase the price of gasoline was taken up in a news story in the Halifax Daily News. Crowley, who appeared before the committee in Truro on 21 July 2004, expressed concern in a media release that the Committee was showing considerable sympathy to the demands of gasoline retailers looking for increased margins, and they were openly canvassing ideas for regulatory schemes to give retailers the increased margins they seek. In his brief before the Committee, Crowley warned that such increased margins could only be created at the expense of consumers. When interviewed for the article, none of the Committee members denied that they were considering regulatory action to give retailers better incomes.

As AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley writes in his bi-monthly newspaper column, everyone hates paying high prices for gasoline and heating oil. They hit the poor harder than everybody else; they wreak havoc with family and business budgets. Perhaps worst of all, they seem to happen without rhyme or reason, like bolts of lightning out of a clear winter sky. Quite understandably, then, these price rises provoke fear, anger and suspicion of the oil and gas companies that are their authors. But before we rush off to embrace the responses that many people propose to solve this problem, we had better be sure exactly what the problem is and what all the consequences would be of, say, letting governments fix the price of gas.