The WSJ has a nice summary on the situation. Lawmakers are looking to trim the profits of wholesalers but haven't considered dropping the 60 cent a gallon tax. The economics of the situation are fixed; if the law sets the price too low there will be no gas and if the set price is higher than gas suppliers were willing to sell it for the cap won't be noticed. So if the international price of oil drops (there is only one world market) they will pay no political price. They will be seen as doing something and prices will drop (even though the two are unrelated). If the price is set too low - like to $1 - the legislature will be easy to finger as the culprit when the state goes dry.

If the legislators guessed low on price but not enough to kill the wholesalers there will be some hardship, the gas will mostly keep flowing, and the politicos will be seen as doing something about it. They have a tougher job if the gas stops flowing, they'll have to shift to blaming their victims (the wholesalers) for the problem. I am not familiar with the Hawaiian situation but since the WSJ piece says they have two refineries it must be cheaper to ship crude to Hawaii and make gas locally over refining it from the west coast and boating it over. If the new price cap causes the Hawaiian refiners to go tits up the long term situation will cause a rise in prices for consumers. Anyone wanting to buy the bankrupt refineries in HI takes a great risk at being put out of business at any time by a whim of the legislature. More likely the west coast refineries will come to dominate the business and will have the leisure of just not selling to the islands during the next legislative spat.

I'd hate to be a refiner in HI. Assuming the cap is below cost the best option might still be to sell gas at a loss and hope the whole thing blows over soon. Sell all the crude in the pipeline at a small loss and try to divert shipments in progress to another refinery not covered by the caps. You'd have to take a gamble on the workforce. Keep them on at full cost and hope things turn around or put them out and pay unemployment and possibly large political blowback. While announcing a layoff on the same day the legislation goes into effect may be good payback to the legislature it would almost certainly backfire in the long term. Politicians have longer memories than the public.