CAN THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD BE FAR BEHIND?

The lieutenant governor proposes amending the state Constitution to regulate gasoline prices. (Matea Gold and Elizabeth Douglass, August 29, 2003, LA Times)

Charging that international oil companies are manipulating the gasoline market, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante said Thursday that as governor he would work to bring the industry under state regulation in an effort to control gas prices.

Bustamante, who compared the behavior of oil companies to deception in the electricity industry, proposed amending the California Constitution to define gasoline as a public utility and subjecting gas prices to approval by the state Public Utilities Commission. [...]

Hawaii approved a price cap on gasoline that is set to take effect in July, but no state regulates the oil industry as Bustamante proposes. Oil companies would likely challenge the new law as a violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"Gasoline -- and the business of selling gasoline -- is part of interstate commerce that belongs to Congress to regulate, if at all," said Anthony Sabino, an associate law professor at St. John's University's Peter J. Tobin College of Business in New York. "With all due respect to Mr. Bustamante, he is either very ignorant of the law, or he's getting incredibly bad advice from his advisors, or it's a publicity stunt."

Maybe he really is as big an idiot as everyone says. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 29, 2003 8:36 PM