Michael Giberson
Following up on the earlier post, a recent FTC document details the agency’s activities addressing the oil and gas industry during the first six months of 2009.
Of the investigation into gasoline prices in Western New York, the FTC said:
The Commission’s work involving oil and natural gas also includes the examination of possibly anticompetitive conduct by firms in these industries. A prominent example of this type of activity was the Commission’s investigation of gasoline prices in Western New York and Vermont that began during the fall of 2008. Alerted both by Congressional expressions of concern and by its own Gasoline and Diesel Price Monitoring Project (described in more detail, infra), the Commission conducted a detailed examination of the reasons for higher-than-expected gasoline prices in and around Buffalo and in Northern Vermont. Following a six-month investigation, the Commission found substantial evidence that the prices were unlikely to have been caused by law violations. In response to Members’ requests, the Commission also noted various possible proposals that have been raised in the public discussion on addressing concerns about gasoline prices.
So the FTC clearly states it has conducted an extensive, six-month investigation that “found substantial evidence that the prices were unlikely to have been caused by law violations,” but so far as I have been able to tell the end result was just a letter sent to a few members of Congress, not a publicly-released written report as called for by the interested members of Congress.