Average gasoline prices in Florida remained stable during the past week despite increased demand in the run-up to Hurricane Milton and as hundreds of stations are still without electricity after the storm.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday his office will look at a “loophole” in a state law about electric generators at gas stations, though he stopped short of saying the law would be changed. Meanwhile, the AAA auto club said “conditions are improving,” with all but two gas terminals at Florida ports reopened to load tanker trucks.
GasBuddy, an online site that tracks gas prices, said Monday afternoon that 17.5 percent of the 7,915 gas stations in Florida did not have fuel, with half of the stations in the Tampa to Sarasota region out. In the Fort Myers and Naples region, 20.8 percent of the stations didn’t have fuel. In the region from Orlando to Daytona Beach, 17.9 percent of stations did not have gas, while Gainesville still had about 16.5 percent of stations out.
Noting the number of stations that were unable to quickly reopen, DeSantis over the weekend was critical that many didn’t have generators to resume operations.
“A lot of these gas stations, quite frankly, are supposed to have generators. Very few of them have used them that I've seen, especially in the areas that were the hardest hit,” DeSantis said during an appearance Saturday in Plant City.
Florida law requires most stations to be able to run on generators, while requiring gas-station chains to have at least one portable generator for every 10 fuel outlets they own in a county.
While at Port Manatee on Monday, DeSantis described the law as a “loophole,” adding “we'll look at that and see if anything needs to be addressed.”
When pressed, he responded that, “we just have to be careful before we're saying, ‘Do this or do that.’”
“You have to figure out, OK, how much do you want to be dictating from the state, or how much do you want to just work collaboratively on some of this stuff," DeSantis said.
"And to say we're just going to mandate almost anything. I don’t know that that’s necessarily the best approach,” DeSantis continued. “The fact is these are private businesses; the fuel supply is a private sector. We are not Venezuela.”
AAA said Monday the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in Florida was $3.10, the same as a week earlier and down 3 cents from a month ago. Milton made landfall Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane in Sarasota County and caused extensive damage along the Gulf Coast and in Central Florida.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a statement Monday that Milton is not affecting prices nationally, and the situation in Florida is expected to improve. The national average price Monday was $3.20 a gallon, according to AAA.
“With restoration happening in Florida, we could start to see a decline in gas prices in the weeks ahead, with a good chance of seeing the first sub-$3 per gallon national average since 2021,” De Haan said.
To offset delays in fuel shipments last week, the state over the weekend started to offer motorists up to 10 gallons of free gas at sites in Bradenton, Plant City, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Arcadia, Port Charlotte, North Port, Tarpon Springs, Port Richey and Tampa. The sites remained open Monday.
On Monday, DeSantis said 2.4 million gallons of gas had been distributed from state reserves.
In addition to the free fuel, the state also has been rerouting fuel trucks to stations that were opened but ran out due to demand.
