Sudip Datta, finance professor in the School of Business Administration , is quoted in a story that speculates about whether the influence of the OPEC cartel over oil prices is waning. "In some sense, this is a good thing in that you are taking power away from an oligopoly like OPEC and lessening the influence the group has had on U.S. foreign policy," Datta said. OPEC said on its Web site that oil prices were "out of line" with supply and demand fundamentals. It also acknowledged that its influence over petroleum pricing was increasingly limited.