They're not allowed to do this now? There are lots of gas stations around me that charge about 4 cents per gallon less if one pays with cash.
ML/NJ
Unsurprisingly, the article doesn't understand the finer points of credit card merchant agreements, or, perhaps, the Senate doesn't understand it either. Either way, no surprise.
There is no prohibition to a merchant offering a cash discount to a person that chooses to pay with cash instead of a credit card. It must be advertised as a cash discount. What is prohibited, on the other hand, is charging an additional fee for use of a credit card. While it is two sides of the same coin, the credit card companies see it differently.
Incidentally, there are a lot of these rules that get completely ignored. For instance, a fairly common practice among smaller merchants is to have a minimum charge for credit card use--this violates the terms of the merchant agreement and if the credit card companies found out, the merchant could lose its ability to accept credit cards.