The petroleum marketers, a.k.a wholesalers and chain operators of truck stops and convenience stores, are organizing a new coalition, P.U.M.P. (the Partnership for Uniform Marketing Practices), to stop the rising momentum to mandate automatic temperature compensation (ATC) gasoline pumps.
It’s hardly a surpise given the fact that the hot fuel scam allows retailers to buy temperature adjusted gasoline from oil companies, then sell greater volumes of that fuel to consumers with each gallon sold containing less energy than the original. The average temperature in the U.S. is 65 degrees, and in California it’s 75. With retailers "growing" their gasoline by about 1% for every 15 degree increase in termperature, and summer drive season the period of peak demand, the retailers see a big dividend when the mercury rises. They sell more gallons of hot fuel than they buy and they pocket the extra taxes paid on those extra gallons too. Oil companies know this and, thus, drive up the price that they charge retailers for their gasoline.
It would be alot easier if all stations and truck stops stood behind the honest gallon notion and fought with oil companies to give them a better deal. Instead, the petroleum marketers want to study the temperature-adjusted pump idea to death. Motorists won’t stand for that. The more consumers hear about the double standard in temperature adjustment — retailers get it, but consumers don’t — the more angry they will be not only with the oil companies, but the station owners that stand in the way of change.