They’re both characterized by a situation of sudden (and unpredicted) scarcity because of a breakdown in the usual supply chain that provides a good, and the price of that newly scarce good increasing dramatically.
One is where someone who already has a stock of the newly scarce good increases the price and reaps a windfall profit from the event. The other is where someone acts to increase the supply of the newly scarce good, and charges a price commensurate with the extraordinary measures required to do so (ordinary measures, by definition, no longer being adequate to provide a supply).
There are good reasons why we might want to treat these two cases differently, and yet I see very few people, on either side of the debate, willing to make the distinction.
what I wanted to say but couldn’t be bothered
Easy to suggest, very tricky to solve as a matter of policy.
The government could just state that it’s willing to pay some inflated price to anyone able and willing to get desired goods into a disaster area (and then take over distribution once they’ve reached the area). That would pretty easily separate the two functions (increasing supply vs final distribution).
Alternately, the government could just do such a good job with disaster relief directly that there wouldn’t be a huge shortfall in supply for necessities, and price-gouging would be more of a nuisance than a crisis.
Of course, either of these presupposes a level of shit-togetherness-having that the US government has not demonstrated during any recent disasters…
Schemes like the first one have the verification problem, you have to verify that the goods are both being delivered and being sold at appropriate prices.
Problem with the second one is just that disaster preparation is a waste of taxpayer money that could be going to tax cuts for the rich.
I believe that the second can be unlocked with a new ideology and a new design of government.