Ga. officials investigating gas price complaints

ATLANTA - Nearly 150 Georgia gas stations are having to defend why they charged inflated prices after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike made fuel scarce over the past month.

The state has subpoenaed sales records from businesses following complaints from 1,500 customers angry over what they were paying at the pump.

State officials received reports of gas as high as $9.99 a gallon for regular unleaded, said Bill Cloud, spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs.

He said his office is still getting a few dozen calls a day about gas prices.

One station in Cobb County was charging $8.82 a gallon, and a Houston County gas station was asking customers to pay $7 per gallon, Cloud said.

He declined to release specific names of subpoenaed stations, saying they are still under investigation.

Under state law, businesses have to prove that they were making the same profit with their elevated prices as they were prior to Gov. Sonny Perdue activating the anti-gouging statutes Sept. 12, Cloud said.

“Simply put, if it costs you $1 a gallon when you bought it and you were selling it for $2, then if it now costs you $2, you can sell it for $3,” Cloud said.

State law requires the governor to issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency and activating Georgia’s consumer protection statutes.

The activation runs out this weekend, and the governor’s office has given no indication of whether Perdue plans to extend the period even though the state’s average gas price is still 30 cents higher than the national average.

Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said the governor will make a decision by Friday.

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the state got 6,000 complaints of price gouging. The state investigated about 200 gas stations, and ended up fining 80 stations for price gouging, Cloud said.

Gustav and Ike shuttered Gulf Coast oil refineries for a few weeks because of power outages, which left several southern states, including Georgia, without enough gas. The shortage made gas prices shoot up across the region and frustrated motorists who had to hunt for fuel and wait in line sometimes for hours to fill up.

According to AAA, the average price for unleaded regular gas in Georgia was $3.72 a gallon on Wednesday, up a more than $1 from this time last year. The national average was $3.45 on Wednesday.

Georgia’s gas average hit an all-time high Sept. 15 at $4.16 per gallon.