The guys (yeah, it’s mostly guys) at the Western Weights and Measures Association conference here in Tahoe are serious about their math, but they have a great sense of humor. Lately the joke is on the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC’s scientifically illiterate "opinion" issued last week on the hot fuel issue described mere "tablespoons" of gasoline lost to fuel expansion, then underplayed the actual loss by a factor of ten. It wasn’t the bad math but the "tablespoon science" that had the weights and measures fellows giggling.
Today, the fun was over, sort of, when the FTC issued a one-paragraph letter to "apologize for providing some inaccurate information."
The FTC info wasn’t just inaccurate, it was baldly political, picking up almost word for word the fake science and defensive arguments of petroleum marketers’ lobbyists. FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras said in teeth-clenched fashion that she had "directed my staff to conduct a thorough reassessment of the issue based on accurate data." Sorry, Deb. You don’t get another pass at trashing proponents of a hot fuel fix after showing your stripes so flagrantly. As a former lawyer for Chevron, you were on thin ice just in taking up a sword for the other side.
Another weapon of the oil marketing associations was a demand that weights and measures officials wait for a scheduled National Academy of Science study of the costs and benefits of adjusting retail fuel sales for temperature. That also caused some eye-rolling by the math guys, who know full well that the Natonal Academy of Science doesn’t leap up and study gasoline sales. They saw the marketers’ eagerness to wait for a study for what it was: a three-year delaying tool.
Today, leaders of the Tahoe conference picked up the phone to check it out. the NAS said no such study is planned, noting that some "misinformation" was making the rounds..
So opponents’ arguments are falling, even as they step up their political opposition to temperature compensation of retail fuels at the pump. The Western weights and measures group supports allowing and encouraging, even eventually mandating, temperature compensation. After all, the West is the hottest place to live–even when it comes to buying gasoline. Arizona officials have found temperatures at the pump at 105 degrees. That’s 45 degrees above the 60-degree "standard," meaning a dime a gallon extra for the sellers. The oil companies are fine with the system, because they can charge retailers more and let them make it up on selling heat-expanded gallons to drivers. The worst of it? There’s no way to know how hot and expanded the gasoline is at any particular station.
Now I’m off to the gala riverboat ride on Lake Tahoe. Bit of a waterborne mixed metaphor, but it’s also subsidized by the weights and measures association’s "industry members." I’m interested in what the industry members expect for their generosity.
More later.