TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine (D) said he may consider lifting a 57-year-old law that makes the state only one of two where motorists can't pump their own gasoline, reported Bloomberg News.
A repeal of the ban against self-service gas stations may save consumers as much as five cents a gallon, said State Senator Gerald Cardinale (R). Lower prices would soften the impact of a gasoline tax increase, which Corzine hasn't ruled out as a way to fund road and bridge work.
It's worthy of a debate, Corzine said last [image-nocss] week in response to questions about eliminating the self-serve ban. It's certainly one of those things that one might want to pair with a gasoline tax increase.
Cardinale has sponsored bills to allow self-serve gasoline in New Jersey since the 1980s. He is opposed by station owners who say full-serve is safer and creates jobs, and by some senior citizens.
The real reason I get into this is because I don't like silly laws, said Cardinale. The law against self-serve is silly. Government has no business getting into that.
New Jersey and Oregon are the only states with bans on self-serve gasoline; both were adopted more than 50 years ago because of safety concerns. Improvements in technology have since made safety a total non-issue, Cardinale said.
New Jersey drivers save $50 million every time gasoline prices drop by a penny, said Jim Benton, executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council. That means if prices fell by Cardinale's five-cents-a-gallon estimate after self-serve was allowed, New Jersey drivers may save $250 million.
In the 48 states where self-serve is permitted, 93% of people use it, according to a 2005 poll by GasBuddy.com, a website that tracks gasoline prices.
A repeal would endanger jobs for 36,000 station employees in New Jersey.
Every time you pump your own gas, you take away jobs, Nick Acocella, editor of Politifax, an email newsletter on New Jersey politics, told Bloomberg. Full-serve is the single greatest cultural advantage to living in New Jersey. It's why we stay here.
New Jersey's 14.5-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax is the main source of money for highway, bridge and rail projects in the most densely populated U.S. state.
Corzine in March signed a bill that will raise $8 billion for the project fund over five years without higher gas taxes, and keep it from running out of money for new projects by July 1. Corzine said he might consider raising the gasoline tax later.
The state's gasoline tax is one of the lowest in the nation. Neighbors New York and Pennsylvania have rates of 45.77 cents and 32.3 cents, while the national average is 21.5 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API).
New Jersey's low gasoline tax and proximity to oil refineries are why drivers there pay some of the lowest gasoline prices in the nation. Many residents assume the self-serve gas ban is what's saving them money, Cardinale said. Subtract the tax from the price, and New Jersey gas costs more than in other places, he said.
Surf City resident Robert Atkins wants no part of self- serve, even if it means lower prices. Atkins, 53, a retired high school guidance director, said he and others prefer the convenience of staying inside our vehicles, keeping our hands and clothes clean and odor-free. Don't fix what's not broken.
Pamela Fischer, vice president of public affairs for AAA New Jersey Automobile Club, said the club opposes lifting the ban because there is no proof that doing so would help prices. In other states that allowed self-serve, prices have often risen as the full-service price becomes the self-service price, she said. No one has ever been willing to guarantee that consumers will save money, Fischer told Bloomberg.
Cardinale said he will probably introduce a bill to repeal the ban next month. He has made compromises to appease critics, including adding a stipulation that station owners who offer both full- and self-serve can't have a price difference of more than five cents a gallon between the two options.
He last introduced his self-serve bill in 2002. The measure never made it out of committee. The furthest he got was in the 1980s, when the bill was voted out of committee, but never got to the full Senate for a vote.
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