PUBLISHED 6-26-2007

Gas prices may be cooling off  — temporarily — but the weather isn’t, and that is costing you money  unnecessarily.
 
The hotter gas is at the pump, the less power it has per gallon, but you end up paying the same price for the lower power.

A lot of consumers want to change the situation, but the oil industry is cool to the solution. Its legislative power is leading to what the Los Angeles-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights rightly calls “dither and delay.”

Enough. The solution — temperature-compensating gas pumps — are readily available and used in Canada and Hawaii.
 
The federal standard temperature for measuring a gallon of gasoline is 60 degrees, close to the average worldwide temperature.

 As gasoline heats up, it expands. A gallon of liquid will fill a gallon container no matter what the temperature, but if the liquid is hot there are fewer molecules in that volume than if the liquid was cooler. The result when it comes to gasoline is literally less bang for the buck.

A House of Representatives subcommittee estimates that U.S. drivers pay $1.5 billion in unnecessary fuel costs during the summer, $228 million of that in California.

Class action lawsuits aimed at forcing distributors to allow stations to use temperature-compensating pumps have been filed in several states.

In California, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights asked California’s attorney general in March to investigate whether industry was preventing stations from using the pumps. It has not had a reply to its request, and the attorney general’s office did not respond to a Californian inquiry about the matter last week.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress and the Legislature to begin rectifying the situation. But the legislation calls for more studies, advisory panels and hearings — not action.
 
In California’s case, for example, AB868 by Assemblyman Mike Davis, D-Los Angeles, has listed as a supporter and sponsor the California Independent Oil Marketers Association. If enacted, the California Department of Food and Agriculture couldn’t even make recommendations to the Legislature for regulations until the beginning of the 2009 legislative session.

Valley residents know heat all to well. It’s time to put the heat on legislators, the attorney general and the industry to stop the “dither and delay.”