The doubling and in some cases quadrupling of Southern California’s natural gas bills in recent months resulted from rapid price spikes in the so-called spot market, a real-time wholesale market for the fuel. The lack of transparency in the California spot gasoline market played an equally large role in the punishment of California drivers last year.

The secrecy surrounding transactions in both markets keeps the public in the dark about who is making a fortune from their pain. Transparency would not only expose the profiteers, but could also discourage future evisceration.

Southern California Gas Co., the gas monopoly in Southern California, usually pulls in its stored gas supply in the winter rather than buying it during the colder months when it is most expensive. This year, however, instead of tapping into inventory,

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to buy massive amounts of gas on the spot market where someone made a fortune on natural gas prices 10 times higher than normal.

The public doesn’t know who reaped this windfall, but it’s in our best interest to find out. SoCalGas’ parent company, Sempra Energy, has an energy trading arm that sells gas to the utility. Did SoCalGas’ decision to buy at a high in the spot market drive up the price and help an affiliate make a killing?

Unfortunately, that remains unclear because spot market transactions in natural gas are shielded from public scrutiny. Similar electricity deals, on the other hand, were made public after Enron traders took advantage of deregulation to loot California. Now every electricity trade is published on the spot market, deterring such misconduct.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has the authority to publish natural gas spot market transactions, but has never done so. The nonprofit Public Citizen has petitioned the agency to change that. Southern Californians, who just paid the highest natural gas bills in America, have a right to know who got their hard-earned money.

Natural gas isn’t the only fuel Californians have paid dramatically more for in recent months. At one point in October, gas prices in California rose to $2.60 more per gallon than the U.S. average. the

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gap provided historic profits for oil refiners, which doubled their profits per gallon in the West last year, according to their own public reports to investors. Gasoline prices rising above $6 a gallon caused incalculable pain for low-income families, some of whom had to choose between filling their gas tank or putting food on the table.

How can oil refiners charge Californians so much more at the pump when their production costs, as evidenced by their profits, don’t justify it? California oil refiners determine the price they charge station owners for gasoline based not on their costs but on the price of California gasoline on the spot market, a market controlled by the five oil refineries that make 98% of our gasoline, along with a small group of traders.

Like the analog natural gas market, California’s spot gasoline market is shrouded in secrecy, making it vulnerable to manipulation. TheCalifornia

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Office is suing traders SK Energy and Vitol for alleged spot market manipulation after the Exxons Torrance refinery went bankrupt in 2015. Among other things, the companies are accused of making transactions where no gasoline changed hands solely to drive up the price of the fuel.

This is possible because there is no ledger of gasoline spot market transactions, only voluntary reports to the Oil Price Information Service, an oil industry news service. Nothing requires disclosure of any transaction, the quantity or the identity of the buyer or seller. Nor is there a record of how many transactions take place on any given day. The service only publishes a spot market price.

That means a single trade could set the price of all retail gasoline in the state for days or weeks. When the spot price is high, there is no reason to report a trade. Robert McCullough, an economist who has studied energy markets for decades, recently tested for a Senate committee that at the height of the spikes last fall, the spot price for gasoline did not change for two weeks. If that had happened to the Dow, he wondered, wouldn’t anyone have noticed?

The California Legislature, which is considering how to avoid future spikes in gas prices, should make spot market transactions public. Federal regulators, meanwhile, already have the authority to impose similar transparency in the natural gas market. Shedding some sunlight on prices will help Californians weather future winters.

Jamie Court is the president of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Consumer Watchdog.