Nick Snow
Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 11 -- Chairman of the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Domestic Policy subcommittee Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio)—who has been examining consumer impacts of gasoline volume expansion during summer months—said the subcommittee will continue its inquiry after questioning the key assumption of US Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras in her response to the committee.
Responding to her Aug. 28 letter to ranking minority member Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif.), which he released Sept. 6, Kucinich told Majoras in a Sept. 7 letter that a variation of 20° F. would cause more than a 6-tbsp. change in volume in a 20-gal tank of gasoline (OGJ, Sept. 10, 2007, p. 22).
Kucinich wrote that the change would be more than 10 times the amount that Majoras indicated. "According to the weights and measures program coordinator at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a 20° F. variation would cause a variation in volume of 1.38%, almost 12 times the result FTC calculated. Rather than 6 tbsp., the volume variation would be about 3/10 gal."
The larger amount greatly exceeds the plus-or-minus 6 tbsp. for every 5 gal of gasoline pumped, which Majoras said most states tolerate, Kucinich said. "It would indeed be noteworthy if the FTC's view of such a large variation was tolerable, or that sales in which the reported volume differed from the actual volume by such a variation did not constitute the basis of a fraud investigation," he said in his letter.
Majoras said FTC's staff itself has not investigated the "hot fuel" issue, Kucinich noted, and he requested a briefing from the FTC chairwoman at her earliest opportunity to discuss opinions she expressed in her letter to Issa.
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