The Legislature makes the following findings with respect to the marketing of motor fuel in Alabama:
(1) Marketing of motor fuel is affected with the public interest.
(2) Unfair competition in the marketing of motor fuel occurs whenever costs associated with the marketing of motor fuel are recovered from other operations, allowing the refined motor fuel to be sold at subsidized prices. Such subsidies most commonly occur in one of three ways: when refiners use profits from refining of crude oil to cover below normal or negative returns earned from motor fuel marketing operations; and where a marketer with more than one location uses profits from one location to cover losses from below-cost selling of motor fuel at another location.
(3) Independent motor fuel marketers (i.e., dealers, distributors, jobbers, and wholesalers) are unable to survive predatory subsidized pricing at the marketing level by persons when all of an independent’s income comes from marketing operations.
(4) Subsidized pricing is inherently predatory and is reducing competition in the petroleum industry, and if it continues unabated, will ultimately threaten the consuming public.