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Over the last decade of investigations, public officials have yet to find evidence that high gas prices in Alaska are illegal. Local lawmakers are as frustrated as everyone else, but so far they're bereft of solutions.

"I'm outraged," said Sen. Kim Elton, D-Juneau, who had just filled up his gas tank Wednesday morning.

Yet he doubted the high prices were illegal.

"Should there be a law? Maybe," he said. "It seems to me that Alaskans have a right to know whether we're being charged a fair price, or whether we're being charged the price they can get away with."

Crude oil prices have dropped significantly since this summer's high, and Alaskans have seen some relief. But they are still paying high fuel prices, according to a December report from the state. Even with recent declines, the average price per gallon of gasoline increased 28 percent from November 2007 to November 2008, from $4.54 to $5.80, the report said.

In a Dec. 18 report for Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, legislative analyst Chuck Burnham looked into how Alaska's two major refineries affect retail prices.

"I would say it raises more questions than it answers," Burnham said.

Since March, the "refinery component" of Alaska retail prices - wholesale price minus the cost of crude - increased 230 percent, he found. That was true elsewhere, though less so: The increase in Washington was 63 percent and averaged about 120 percent nationally.

It was clear that local refinery margins contributed to Alaska currently having the highest prices in the nation, Burnham wrote.

But Burnham's agency didn't have access to the critical but proprietary information of how much refineries pay for crude and what their operating costs are, which would allow him to calculate how much they're profiting.

"We are unable to explain why cost increases for Alaska refineries have outstripped those of other states," the report said.

Refinery representatives told House Judiciary Committee members this year that gas costs were based on oil costs and blamed their own cost increases on environmental regulations and the high cost of doing business in Alaska's small market, the report said.

The report doesn't address the situation in Southeast Alaska, where most gas comes from Lower 48 refineries but prices are still high. Southeast retail gas prices in November ranged from $2.89 in Juneau to $6.34 in Pelican and $8.80 in Point Baker.

More information is coming in January.

Senior attorney general Ed Sniffen is conducting the third major Law Department investigation in a decade. He hired a petroleum economist to help, has the power to subpoena oil distribution companies - who agreed to pony up data - and says the state learned from its past two investigations what questions to ask.

Sniffen's investigation will cover all of Alaska, including Southeast, Sniffen said months ago.

Even as he began the investigation, Sniffen told people that prices might be unfair but legal. Price gouging isn't illegal here, and price-gouging laws in other states generally kick in only for emergencies.

And if demand for gas doesn't change much, suppliers may have little incentive to lower the price.

"There is no law against anyone charging whatever they want for their product," he said then.

But Elton said he's hoping Sniffen's new data will point lawmakers toward solutions.

No states currently regulate wholesale prices charged by refineries, though researcher Burnham couldn't find any obvious legal impediment to doing so.

In Hawaii, lawmakers capped wholesale gas prices - but the law was repealed eight months later, when it didn't seem to be keeping prices down. They also required wholesale prices to be made public.

More public information could help here, Elton said. But he acknowledged there weren't any obvious fixes.

"It is easier to talk about the problem than it is to craft the solution," he said.

Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, said she went through the same questions 15 years ago, when she worked at the state attorney general's office. She said short-term legislative pressure on prices might help, but she emphasized the need to focus on long-term energy plans that cultivate renewable sources and conservation.

"Now that maybe I'm getting wiser, I can see that to get out of that cycle, it's not going to be enough to go around on gas prices," she said. "How do we get Alaska out of this?"

• Contact reporter Kate Golden at 523-2276 or kate.golden@juneauempire.com.