BALTIMORE -- Maryland lawmakers will weigh whether to make price gouging during an emergency such as Hurricane Katrina a crime in Maryland, reported the Baltimore Business Journal.
Delegate Samuel Sandy Rosenberg (D) said he plans in the upcoming legislative session to introduce a bill that would bar businesses from imposing exorbitant price hikes during a state of emergency. The measure would be similar to one that died in committee earlier this year.
The exact details of the anticipated bill have yet to be determined, but the 2005 [image-nocss] legislation would have barred businesses from hiking prices for essential goods and services by more than 10% during an emergency, said the report.
That bill would have applied to sales of essential goods including food, emergency supplies, gasoline, medical supplies, heating oil and hotel rooms. It would have allowed price hikes of more than 10% only if a business could have proven the increase was the result of additional costs.
Rosenberg, who sponsored the 2005 bill at the request of the state Attorney General's office, was more optimistic about its prospects in the upcoming session. I think the political terrain has changed in light of Katrina, he told the newspaper.
Though business groups opposed the 2005 measure, Rosenberg and the AG's office said they are hoping to alter the legislation to satisfy some of those objections.
Steve Sakamoto-Wengel, an assistant AG with the consumer protection division, said that unlike other states, Maryland does not prohibit price gouging. That leaves the state without any power to investigate consumer complaints. People can charge whatever the market will bear, he told the paper.
On December 19, as reported in CSP Daily News, New York s AG Eliot Spitzer announced a settlement with 15 gas stations that agreed to pay a total of $63,500 in penalties for marking up the cost of gasoline after the hurricane.
But business groups are dubious about the need for such legislation in Maryland, the report said. Ronald Wineholt, vice president of government affairs for the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, said the 2005 bill would have really caused havoc in Maryland's economy because it would have been effective for 180 days after a state of emergency; however, he said the chamber might not oppose a more narrowly drawn bill, including one that would be effective only for states of emergencies.
Peter Horrigan, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Petroleum Distributors' Association, called the bill an absolutely unnecessary piece of legislation. He told the paper: Our markets performed superbly. Everybody was able to get the gasoline that they needed.
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