BEDFORD – Democratic State Senate candidate Michael Kaplowitz Thursday said if elected, he will propose legislation to eliminate zone pricing on gasoline.

The practice of hiking the price at the pump in “zone pricing” areas is not based on the cost of the gas or the laws of supply and demand. Instead, the prices are manipulated by the oil companies.

Kaplowitz, who is running for the 40th Senate seat, stood across the street from a gas station in Bedford, condemning the practice.

“Zone pricing is used to collude; zone pricing is use to pervert the market and it’s cost the consumers $1.3 billion a year just in New York, and if we outlaw, it can lower gasoline prices by about five percent or 15-cents per gallon.”

Kaplowitz’s opponents, Mary Beth Murphy and Gregory Ball, are vying for the Republican and Conservative lines in November during party primaries on September 14.