National Conference to weigh proposal for voluntary temperature compensation

The next major development in the “hot fuel” controversy could come in July, when an organization of standards experts considers a proposed model for temperature compensation at the retail level.

In testimony at a June 8 congressional hearing, Michael Cleary, chairman of the National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM), said the conference is debating a proposal “that would be a model law for the states to consider adopting that would allow permissive temperature compensation at the retail level.”

Cleary said the proposal details how automatic temperature compensation “would be used in order to prevent the facilitation of fraud. This proposal is currently a voting item scheduled to be further debated and could be voted on in July of this year at our annual meeting in Utah.” The meeting will be held July 8-12 in Salt Lake City.

The congressional hearing was held by the House of Representatives’ Domestic Policy Subcommittee, part of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and it was titled: “Hot Fuels – The Impact on Commercial Transactions of the Thermal Expansion of Gasoline.” The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

"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," Kucinich, who is running for president, said while presiding over the hearing, according to a June 9 article by Elizabeth Douglass in The Los Angeles Times.

Efforts to force petroleum marketers to compensate for the effect of temperature on fuel dispensing have been on the rise since a series of articles appeared in The Kansas City Star in August 2006.

The series in the newspaper explained that fuel expands and contracts depending on temperature. At 60 degrees, the 231-cubic-inch U.S. gallon puts out a certain amount of energy. But fuel is often sold at much higher temperatures, causing the gas to expand and the amount of energy, by volume, to decrease. Yet consumers still get only 231 cubic inches per gallon, since retail pumps in the United States make no adjustment for changes in the volume caused by temperature.

Temperature compensation should not be made compulsory, Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, told NPN MarketPulse in an interview early this year.

“Our view is that to the largest extent possible most consumers are made whole over the year,” Gilligan said. “The Btus (British thermal unit) they might lose in the summer they gain back in the winter, so generally they’re made whole.” (A Btu is the amount of heat required to increase the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.)

“The United States is one of the only countries in the world without a federal weights and measures regulatory agency," Cleary said in his testimony at the congressional hearing. "In the United States, each jurisdiction funds its weights and measures programs based on budgetary priorities in that particular state. The conference is fully funded by its membership.” Members include state and county weights and measures officials and employees of companies that make weighing and measuring equipment.

“I am not here today to take a position one way or another on the issue, as the conference has not, as yet, voted on the current proposal before the membership,” Cleary said.

"Weights and measures regulatory professionals set standards and enforce uniform procedures to verify weight, volume, length or count, ensuring that consumers get the quantity that they pay for, and that businesses sell the quantity that they intend and advertise,” according to the conference’s Web site.

The NCWM is a consensus organization whose role is to formulate standards and recommend them as models to regulators or legislators. The conference works to ensure uniformity, consistency and fairness in the marketplace. Its Web site says the NCWM works with the Office of Weights and Measures of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create “usable, real-world applications of those standards.”