COLCHESTER, Vt. -
Gas prices continue to be a touchy subject matter. Tuesday night a public hearing was held in regard to prices in Vermont. The national average is $3.27 a gallon. New Yorkers are seeing 3.69, Vermonter $3.54 and Granite stators are seeing $3.40.
It's those prices that have people fuming. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called for an investigation. While there are still a lot of unanswered questions as to why we pay more in Vermont, it is clear that representatives are asking the questions and making note of the public's frustrations.
According to AAA, the state is the 7th highest in average gas prices. Tuesday legislators met with the public to hear their opinions.
"This is mainly for us to get information from the public on their feelings," said Chair of House Transportation, Patrick Brennan.
"We know our customers, 40 years in business so as they trickled away, we knew they were gone," said Cheryl Cote, who owned a gas station in Canaan, she says the state tax hurt her business, "Since the infrastructure tax was implemented, I've lost 130 thousand gallons of gas sales."
Why is the price high? Here are just a few reasons according to distributors, "Just the price of doing business in Vermont, the rural parts of the state, the cost of transportation getting the fuel here," said Brennan.
And from retailers it's, "Credit card fees, overhead lights, electricity," said Brennan.
So when I asked what can be done about the high prices?
"I'm not sure we can do anything but just bringing this issue to light and maybe we can work hand in hand with some of the distributors and come to a common ground where we can actually reduce pricing," said Brennan.
That infrastructure tax mentioned in the story goes to repair the states roads and bridges.
For a complete list of gas prices around the state head to the website http://gasbuddy.com/
