Hot Fuel - Are you getting what you pay for at the pump?

A federal court in Kansas and a federal judge in California are allowing lawsuits to proceed against petroleum marketers, refineries and oil companies. The suits claim that petroleum marketers are selling gasoline to consumers that is below industry standard for energy and mass per gallon, without adjusting the price per gallon to reflect these shortfalls.

According to research conducted by Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR), under its OilWatchDog project, gasoline expands measurably with heat, causing it to lose mass and energy. Retailers sell gasoline by a measured volume gallon, based on the national standard that the fuel averages a temperature of 60 degrees.

In warm-weather states, FTCR points out, consumers are getting less fuel for their money. For example, if gasoline is at 90 degrees in temperature, the consumer has lost about 2 percent of mass and energy. Based on a price of $4 per gallon, that translates to a loss of eight cents for every gallon, the FTCR says.

They point out that oil distributors give extra fuel to retailers to make up for heat-related loss, but that same practice is not passed on to consumers.

The American Petroleum Institute said that because gasoline is stored in underground tanks, it is close to the accepted average temperature of 60 degrees. But a federal study by the National Institute for Standard and Technology found that the temperature of gasoline in underground tanks in California averaged closer to 75 degrees year-round.

Acknowledging these results, ExxonMobil stations in California and Arizona recently put stickers on its pumps informing consumers about fuel volume being "affected by temperature."