Temperature compensation on agenda at Weights and Measures conference

As standards experts prepare to consider a proposed model for temperature compensation at retail, refiner Tesoro started putting warning decals on dispensers at its gas stations, including dozens of Shell stations in California, according to news reports.

The decals warned that consumers may not get all the energy they paid for in a gallon of gasoline, according to an article by Judy Dugan in California Progress Report.

Meanwhile, the National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM), an organization of standards experts based in Rockville, Md., is due to meet July 8-12 in Salt Lake City to debate, and possibly vote on, a proposal “that would be a model law for the states to consider adopting that would allow permissive temperature compensation at the retail level,” Michael Cleary, NCWM’s chairman, said in Congressional testimony in June.

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]... at our Annual meeting in Utah.”

The Congressional hearing held June 8 by the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, part of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was titled: “Hot Fuels – The Impact on Commercial Transactions of the Thermal Expansion of Gasoline.”

The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is running for president.

Efforts to force petroleum marketers to compensate for the affect 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 frequently sold at higher temperatures, causing the gas to expand and the amount of energy, by volume, to decrease. 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. Of course, during colder seasons and in cooler climates the opposite is true, which benefits consumers. The impact, in either case, is likely minimal.

In his testimony at the Congressional hearing, Cleary, the NCWM chairman, said, “The United States is one of the only countries in the world without a federal weights and measures regulatory agency. 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.

Cleary described the Conference as “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. “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.

In partnership with the Office of Weights and Measures of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NCWM creates “useable, real-world applications of those standards,” according to the Conference’s Web site.