The law prohibits a person from charging an excessive price for a product or service if a state of emergency exists. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. declared a state of emergency in Utah on Saturday in order to recoup up to $5 million allocated for assistance to Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

But even before then, Commerce Executive Director Francine Giani and the Utah Attorney General's office were examining the law passed during the 2005 Legislature. Officials wanted to know whether they had the authority to halt rising fuel costs, particularly gasoline, as refineries in the Mississippi Gulf struggle to recover from the hurricane and as Utah houses and feeds some of the evacuees.

Tuesday morning they determined the law, sponsored by Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Murray, was intended to stop retailers from charging unreasonable prices for products they already have have in stock. "The statute was never intended to control prices or stop normal supply and demand," said Giani, whose department is required to enforce the act.

Arent said she sponsored the bill after hearing stories of price gouging after hurricanes in Florida. But she never imagined a situation where a state of emergency would be declared in Utah over a disaster that occurred across the country.

"This was not exactly what we were thinking about," said Arent, who will sponsor amendments to clarify the bill.

Currently, the law allows retailers to charge their cost, plus 10 percent, plus their usual markup during the previous 30 days for regular merchandise. If they sold other than regular merchandise, they could charge cost plus 30 percent.

With the cost of gasoline soaring in the wake of Katrina, political pressure is mounting to impose price controls, but White House officials dismiss the idea and economists warn that caps would be counterproductive.

Oil market analysts told the Houston Chronicle that the incidence of price gouging is likely exaggerated.

''Everything I've seen out in the market reflects market conditions,'' said Kevin Lindemer, energy economist at Global Insight, an economic forecasting firm in Lexington, Mass.

Still, state attorneys general across the country have pledged to crack down on price gougers. The U.S. Department of Energy is also on the hunt for profiteers, urging consumers to report prices that strike them as too high in light of market conditions.

According to the American Automobile Association's daily gas-price survey posted Tuesday, a gallon of unleaded regular rose an average 72 cents nationwide from last month to the highest cost adjusted for inflation since 1981. In Utah, that average gain was 58.3 cents.

Utah's gasoline retailers typically make just five to six cents profit from each gallon they sell, said John Hill, state director of the Utah Petroleum Marketers Association.

"The sale of gasoline usually doesn't make retailers enough to cover their expenses," Hill said. "To stay in business they must have something else going, a car wash or convenience store with a soda fountain, something that will make them a little money."

Giani said the anti-gouging law needed tweaking to make it plain the natural disaster had to occur in Utah or perhaps in surrounding states before it could be enforced. She also was unsure how to interpret the bill's reference to sales of merchandise or services "necessary for consumption or use as a direct result of events giving rise to a state of emergency."

"I don't know if I can answer that question. But it's a good one - do I really need to be driving my car?" Giani said.

Consumers who believe they are being overcharged can call the Utah Division of Consumer Protection at (801) 530-6601. "But there'd probably be very little we'd be able to do," Giani said.

Gas prices have eased since the Labor Day weekend, dropping 1.6 cents per gallon of regular unleaded nationwide and 0.8 cents in Utah. The AAA survey also shows that Louisiana and Mississippi, Katrina's biggest victims, had the lowest gas prices in the nation - $2.741 and $2.747 per gallon of regular unleaded. Washington, D.C., was the highest at $3.346 a gallon.

Bloomberg News reported that the high prices are about half of those in Europe, where there are also higher taxes.

Citing a report from RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Allman, Bloomberg said the four Mississippi Gulf refineries most damaged in the hurricane accounted for about 5 percent of prestorm refinery output, which barely kept pace with demand.

---

Tribune reporter Steve Oberbeck contributed to this story.