Several state lawmakers want more details about an industry-financed study on gasoline pricing by a trio of Quinnipiac University professors.
The legislature’s General Law Committee recently killed legislation that would have banned zone pricing, a practice used by wholesalers to charge stations different prices based on where in the state, or even in a city, they are located.
Prices are based on factors such as the volume of business at a station, its proximity to the border and prices at other stations in the area.
A $40,000 study financed by the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., and conducted by three Quinnipiac professors said a ban on zone pricing would, for the most part, increase prices everywhere in Connecticut except in lower Fairfield County.
The Quinnipiac professors who conducted the study said they have destroyed the information and industry lobbyists would not release it.
State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, called on industry lobbyists to make public the information used in the study.
“Releasing the data would only help corroborate the reliability of the study,” he said. “It’s in the industry’s interest to release it.”
Supporters of a ban on price zoning say they will find a way to enact it as an amendment to different legislation. Critics of price zoning say it drives up costs for consumers by blunting competition with arbitrarily set prices.
Steve Guveyan, executive director of the Connecticut Petroleum Institute, a branch of the American Petroleum Institute, said the professors used proprietary information. Oil companies that participated in the study will not allow it to be made public because it could reveal pricing policy to competitors, he said.
When the Quinnipiac professors were commissioned, they were asked to try to find studies that support a zone pricing ban and they could not, Guveyan said.
One of the professors stands by his conclusions but said he understand why lawmakers are demanding the data.
“If I were sitting there watching this and I heard someone said they had deleted all the data, I wouldn’t blame them for being suspicious,” said Christopher Ball, assistant professor of economics at Quinnipiac.
Destroying proprietary information after a study is common, he said.
“At the end of the process, we have to give it all back because it’s not ours to keep,” he said
