California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is looking into the issue of
hot fuel.
Tom Dressler, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s office, said hot –
or expanded – fuel cost the state’s motorists half-a-billion dollars last year.
And, Dressler said, Lockyer considers the failure of the oil industry to
install pumps that compensate for fuel temperature unacceptable.
“The attorney general plans to look into these revelations about the
oil companies nickel and diming truckers and other drivers while at the same
time making record profits,” Dressler told “Land Line Now” on XM Satellite
Radio.
Dressler said the hot fuel probe is not a full-blown investigation yet – but could become one if there’s evidence that laws are being violated.
The California probe comes on the heels of a two-day series on hot fuel
in the Kansas City Star.
But, more than a year ago, Land Line
Magazine and radio began reporting on the same issue. Land Line’s reports were based on the
exhaustive research of OOIDA’s John Siebert, who has worked on the hot fuel
problem since July 2002. Siebert’s investigation included sampling of fuel at
more than 30 different retailers via OOIDA’s truck, the “Spirit of the American
Trucker.”
– by Reed Black, staff writer
reed_black@landlinemag.com
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