Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism

AG says COVID showed Connecticut that it needs a tougher price-gouging law

  • COVID-19
  • by Mark Pazniokas
  • January 27, 2021
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

MARK PAZNIOKAS :: CTMIRROR;ORG

Attorney General William Tong outside the Capitol with Sen. James Maroney, left and Rep. Michael D’Agostino, co-chairs of a committee that will hold a hearing Thursday on a price-gouging bill sought by Tong.

When demand soared for N-95 masks and nitrile gloves last year, so did prices. Hartford HealthCare, the owner of seven acute-care hospitals, saw a seven-fold jump in spending on personal protective equipment, from about $400,000 to $3 million. 

Were suppliers simply obeying the laws of supply and demand, or were they committing price gouging in the midst of a pandemic? 

Attorney General William Tong and legislators said Wednesday that Connecticut’s existing anti-profiteering law made it difficult to say, a problem they hope to resolve with legislation up for a public hearing Thursday before the General Law Committee.

Tong said his office investigated about 750 complaints of price gouging relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, which created an overnight demand for vast quantities of PPE, the shorthand for personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer and disinfectant cleaners.

“What we discovered, unfortunately, is that our law in Connecticut, our price gouging law, is limited and really only gives us the immediate opportunity to go after the first link in the chain, the retailer,” Tong said. 

House Bill 5307 would define price gouging as charging an “unconscionably excessive price” in any area subject to an emergency declaration by the governor or president.

“So what this bill does is enables us to go after everybody who might be responsible for price gouging, including distributors and wholesalers, and to move up the stream of commerce. It also strengthens and clarifies what our law means when it says ‘price gouging,’” Tong said.

The bill has no exact definition of what is excessive. 

Instead, it refers to an amount charged by the seller that “represents a gross disparity between the price for which an item was sold, rented or leased” prior to the emergency or an increase “not attributable to additional costs incurred by the seller in connection with the sale, rental or lease of an item.”

Conservative economists long have looked askance at price-gouging laws as an interference with market dynamics. The conservative columnist, Jeff Jacoby, once wrote, “It isn’t gouging to charge what the market will bear. It isn’t greedy or brazen. It’s how goods and services get allocated in a free society.”

But when the goods are potable water in the aftermath of a hurricane or life-saving PPE, some lawmakers say, the ability to pay a profiteer’s price is not a rational or moral way to make those allocations.

“When you have a crisis like this, it brings out the best and the worst in people,” said Rep. Michael D’Agostino, D-Hamden, a lawyer who co-chairs General Law. “And the job of government is to focus those best efforts, like we’re doing with vaccine distribution, but [also] to control and combat those worst impulses.”

A New England trade group that represents convenience stores, gas retailers and their suppliers already has filed written testimony opposing the bill as unnecessary, even while acknowledging episodes of profiteering. 

“Despite the pandemic, the marketplace worked,” said Brian P. Moran, the director of government affairs for the group. “Competition also worked, giving customers choices, thereby minimizing those seeking to profiteer. Retailers also helped stem shortages and discouraging hoarding by limiting purchase quantities. A customer also knows a fair or unfair price when they see it, and in a competitive marketplace, they have options to shop elsewhere.”

Moran, who says his association represents 1,700 convenience stores that employ 25,000, said the bill is “unwarranted, unrealistic, highly subjective, and largely ignores supply and demand economic principles with which our local, regional, national and international economy operates.”

D’Agostino and his co-chair, Sen. James Maroney, D-Milford, said the bill sets a reasonable standard, and he expects some lawmakers to push for more aggressive language and harsher penalties.

The Connecticut Hospital Association supports the measure. 

“What we’ve learned in the shared experience with our attorney general is that Connecticut’s current law is really insufficient to successfully empower his office, to engage in the enforcement necessary to weed out the bad actors in the supply chain,” said Carl Schiessl, the director of regulatory advocacy for the hospitals association.

MARK PAZNIOKAS :: CTMIRROR.ORG

Sharon Fried, who oversees the supply chain for Hartford HealthCare, said her hospitals saw a sevenfold increase in spending on PPE due to COVID-19.

Sharon Fried, the vice president of supply chain management for Hartford HealthCare, said health-care providers were especially vulnerable to gouging, when the protocols for protecting staff against COVID-19 required vast quantities of PPE.

Normal prices increased ten-fold for some items.

“As always, safety is the most important thing. So we needed to do what we needed to do.” Fried said. “And what we learned is in that immediate period, our demand was so critical, and the suppliers that we work with couldn’t keep up.”

In some cases, new distributors with the right connections bought up supplies then sold them at huge mark-ups.

D’Agostino said the proposed legislation would allow the attorney general, whose jurisdiction is civil, to seek the disgorgement of excessive profits and punitive damages.

“So the message today is very simple. If you’re thinking about price gouging, even if it’s just for a day, or one sale, ‘I’ll make that profit and I’ll get away with it,’ don’t do it,” he said. “The state will find you. The state will catch you. The state will stop you, and you’re going to regret it for a long, long time.”

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Pazniokas is the Capitol Bureau Chief and a co-founder of CT Mirror. He is a frequent contributor to WNPR, a former state politics writer for The Hartford Courant and Journal Inquirer, and contributor for The New York Times.

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Ned Lamont’s year in the shadow of COVID
by Mark Pazniokas

Ned Lamont has been the face, voice, and interpreter of the COVID crisis, mourning deaths, explaining setbacks and cautiously celebrating.

Restaurants and other business can go back to full capacity on March 19 as Lamont rolls back COVID restrictions in CT
by Mark Pazniokas and Jenna Carlesso

Connecticut will eliminate COVID-19 capacity limits on restaurants, houses of worship, retailers and most businesses on March 19.

1,500 Hartford school staff to be vaccinated this week at pop-up clinic
by Adria Watson

Vaccinations are taking place Thursday and Friday. A second round will be scheduled in coming days.

With billions in federal relief on the way to CT, legislators assert their role in deciding how to spend it
by Keith M. Phaneuf and Mark Pazniokas

With an unusual bill, state legislators are reminding Gov. Ned Lamont they have significant role in disbursing federal coronavirus relief.

Will getting teachers vaccinated get students back in school full time? It might not be that easy
by Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, Kasturi Pananjady and Adria Watson

Districts will have to convince parents and students that in-person learning is safe and that students won't bring COVID-19 home.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion The public health bill no one is talking about, but should be
by Brian Festa

On February 16,  the legislature's Public Health Committee conducted a public hearing on two bills, S.B. 568 and H.B. 6423, both of which would eliminate the religious exemption to mandatory vaccinations for Connecticut schoolchildren.  The hearing was capped at 24 hours, depriving nearly 1,500 members of the public who had registered for the hearing their opportunity to be heard.  The vast majority of those who did testify, and who submitted written testimony, opposed the bill.  The committee is expected to vote on the bill as early as  today. 

Opinion Students need more resources, fewer officers
by Tenille Bonilla

"School resource officer" is just a nice way to say cop. But what students really need is more resource and less officer.

Opinion The Board of Regents’ changes must not shortchange its students or faculty
by Carrie Andreoletti, PhD

As a university professor and a lifespan developmental psychologist, I tend to approach my work from a developmental perspective. This means I aim to foster a lifelong love of learning and to help others find a sense of meaning and purpose, as well as confidence in their ability to reach their goals. My approach to higher education is shaped by my desire to provide the best possible education for my students. This is why the recent Board of Regents’ proposed changes at the four state universities have me worried.

Opinion How to close schooling opportunity gaps created by the pandemic
by Carol Gale

We ask school district leaders to trust your public servants whose daily work life involves assessing student needs and planning or modifying instruction to meet those needs. Listen to their voices, as we have, and allocate precious resources on interventions that will offer increased opportunities for Hartford students to succeed.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO