09-10-07 by Dugan
The first person to tell me today that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s fake cure for the "hot fuel ripoff" had passed the Legislature was from an oil marketing organization. He was delighted, calling it a model for state laws on "hot fuel." He should be happy. The California Independent Oil Marketers Association, a Sacramento lobbying group, wrote the bill–as it bragged in a recent position paper.
The bill, AB868, is being carried for the marketers by Nunez and Assemblyman Mike Davis. It will first study the "hot fuel" ripoff to death. Then a group including oil industry "experts" will decide whether it should be fixed–or not. The bill was a complete set-up from the get-go, delaying and likely preventing the retail sale of gasoline adjusted for temperature. Temperature adjustment means using a pump nozzle that adjusts the amount of gasoline sold by its temperature. When it’s hot and gasoline expands, losing energy (a year-round condition in California, Arizona and other warm states), consumers would still get a full gallon’s worth of energy instead of forking over three cents to dime a galllon on "ghost gas.".
Savings aside, fuel temperature adjustment would make gasoline sales fair and transparent from the refinery to the tank on your car. As it is, the wholesalers and distributors get their gasoline with compensation for temperature changes above or below 60 degrees. Motorists don’t, and can’t learn how hot the gasoline at a particular station may be.
The Nunez/Davis legislation is cynical even by Sacramento standards. Nunez and Davis have flaunted the bill everywhere, claiming it as a product of their dedication to curbing oil company abuses. Yet no consumer or consumer organization had an ounce of input on the bill. As originally written, it would even have thrown out a year-long gasoline temperature study being conducted by California regulators, and started over with its own "study."
Praise of California’s phony "hot fuel" bill was part of the discussion today at the Western Weights and Measures Association meeting in Tahoe. That’s one of the depressing things about the meeting. The oil wholesaler and gasoline lobbies are stacked six deep at the microphones to testify. The higher-level oil lobbyists just sit there and nod, having supplied the littler fish with their talking points. At least a couple of speakers actually praised the Federal Trade Commission’s completely false statement on "hot fuel," which understated the problem by a factor of 10 in order to declare that there was no problem.
I’m the only outside consumer representative in the (big) room. There are some state weights and measures officials who encourage me, saying "we need more consumer voices." But what individual consumer has the time or money to go to Chicago or Tahoe and sit in windowless conference rooms awaiting a chance at the mike?
There’s also the fact that it’s the oil representatives and other regulated companies paying for the hospitality suite, plus the "President’s Breakfast" and the gala boat trip on Lake Tahoe tomorrow night. There’s even a form on the registration packet asking these "associate members" to pony up for the hospitality.
At least it’s out in the open, unlike the forces that allow an oil marketing company to write legislation that becomes a phony "consumer protection" bill.
More tomorrow.