Expanding gasoline a heated issue

By Elizabeth Douglass

June 9, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Federal lawmakers took aim at oil companies and service station owners Friday, accusing them of cheating customers by ignoring fuel’s tendency to expand with higher temperatures. U.S. motorists could pay an extra $1.5 billion this summer because of it, they said.

“It is a little-known industry secret that the amount of gasoline you put in your tank when you fill up in the summer is less than the amount in the winter, in terms of weight and energy content,” said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who conducted a congressional hearing on the issue Friday.

“People are paying for gasoline they’re not getting.”

The “hot fuel” price penalty is legal -- and not in dispute. But consumer groups, truckers and others say the cost to drivers is soaring along with gasoline and diesel prices. They want gas stations to install devices that would end the inequity by automatically adjusting volume according to the temperature at the pump.

“You’re not getting a real gallon when it’s hot,” said John Telles, a Pinole, Calif., trucker who joined one of several lawsuits filed last year against fuel retailers over the practice.

“I figure every time I fill up my truck, it’s costing me probably anywhere from $5 to $10, and every time I fill the car, it costs me a buck or two. I lose money on it,” Telles said in an interview.

The cost of the problem is most evident in California, where the weather is consistently warm and motorists pay among the nation’s highest prices for fuel. During the summer, fuel expansion could cause motorists here to overpay for gasoline by $228 million, according to a new report by the House subcommittee on domestic policy, which held Friday’s hearing.

Now it’s become a hot-button issue among lawmakers too.

Friday’s hearing was a first for the hot-fuel dispute and was a sign that politicians viewed the controversy as a consumer issue that could create traction with voters. Kucinich, who is running for president, is chairman of the subcommittee.

This month California Assemblyman Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles) weighed in with a bill that called for the state to analyze the issue and possible solutions by the end of next year. Lawmakers in other states also have proposed legislative fixes.

Industry groups don’t take issue with the physics of fuel expansion. But they reject the notion that consumers are losing out, contending that summertime losses from expansion are offset by gains in the winter. They also have warned that requiring new devices would increase the price of fuel and put some struggling gas stations out of business.

The top executives of Shell Oil Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. were invited to testify Friday but declined.

In a letter to Kucinich and the subcommittee, a group representing truck-stop and service-station retailers urged the congressman to “suspend further action” pending action by measurement experts and the completion of a study by the National Academy of Sciences. Legislators should consider taking steps “only after a careful examination of the facts surrounding the issue,” the letter said.

“As I read this letter, I got angrier and angrier, because basically what they say is, ‘Slow the process down. Suspend everything. We’re going to study this. And we’re going to study this some more,’ ” Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said during Friday’s hearing.

Government standards define a gallon of gasoline as being 231 cubic inches at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. When fuel is warmer than 60 degrees, the liquid expands, so it takes more volume to provide the energy that’s in a standard gallon. When it’s colder, the fuel compacts and becomes more dense, so it takes less fuel to match the standard.

U.S. oil companies and distributors have taken fuel temperature into account for decades. Wholesale facilities are equipped with devices that adjust the volume to bring the gallon tally in line with the 60-degree standard.

Retail pumps in this country don’t have that capability. But the devices are widely used in Canada, where the temperature equation works in favor of consumers instead of fuel retailers -- and where the oil industry pushed for the right to add the equipment.

The National Conference on Weights and Measures, a group of state and federal measurement officials, has proposed rules that would allow stations nationwide to use retail temperature-compensation devices voluntarily.

elizabeth.douglass@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Pumped up

Drivers are paying extra at the pump because fuel expands when temperatures rise and fuel sellers don’t adjust for it.

States with the highest projected extra cost this summer (In millions)

California: $228

Texas: $212

Florida: $152

Arizona:$ 70

Georgia:$66

New York: $52

North Carolina: $48