A bill to allow King Soopers and Safeway to sell discounted gasoline is on its way to the governor's desk just as pump prices are in the midst of another big climb.

House Bill 1208 would allow supermarkets and big-box stores to sell gas and generic drugs at deep discounts.

"It's a big victory for consumers all over the state," said the Senate sponsor, Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins. "They'll now be able to see large discounts on gas prices. . . . It couldn't come at a better time."

The measure won the Senate's final backing on a 27-7 vote Friday, after a rural lawmaker abandoned his push to make it illegal for merchants to sell anything - including turkeys, doughnuts and gas - below cost in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents.

The provision, by Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, made the bill unacceptable to the House, which then sent it back to the Senate. The Senate got rid of the amendment.

Isgar defended it as protecting rural gas stations, stores and independent fuel distributors from the big chains.

Critics said that his amendment would kill everything from discount ski tickets to "ladies' night" drink specials in 55 of the state's 64 counties.

Isgar, a Western Slope Democrat, says the bill paves the way for big retailers to drive up food prices, corner the fuel market and drive out competition.

But Johnson and the House sponsor, Rep. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, said that the bill prohibits giant retailers from engaging in predatory pricing to drive smaller competitors out of business.

The measure was designed to update the Colorado Unfair Practices Act, a 70-year-old predatory pricing law.

Supermarket chains sought the legislation after a small gas station in Montrose won a $1.4 million court judgment last year against King Soopers for selling gas at 40 cents below cost for more than a year and passing on the discount to customers who bought groceries.

"This should not have been made a rural-vs.-urban fight," Jahn said. "This is about the consumer, at the end of the day."