Promoting an Honest Marketplace for Fuel
Dusty Rhodes (D), Hamilton County Auditor and voice for Hamilton County fiscal conservatism has agreed to complete a regular running “insiders” view of Hamilton County’s status. His articles will be published regularly through the CTP blog site, to illustrate his views of fiscal conservation, limited government, and free markets in government action (or inaction).
The Cincinnati Tea Party does not (and cannot) endorse any specific candidates. Dusty’s fifth installment is below, entitled, “Promoting an Honest Marketplace for Fuel”, which provides an overview of the role of the auditor at gas stations and the quality of the fuel at the pump.
The success of free markets is based on accurate information for potential buyers. One of the basic services of government is to assure consumers are getting what they pay for. Our office participates in this process with our Weights and Measures Division. A small, highly trained staff checks dispensers and price scanners across the county.
The effectiveness and professionalism of the Hamilton County Weights and Measures Division was honored last month with the Frank Gallo Award from the Ohio Weights and Measures Association. This award is given annually to an agency for a commitment to excellence in this important work.
Most people see our sticker on the gas pumps when they fill up. But they are surprised to learn that while we can tell them how much fuel they are getting we can not tell them what is being put in their tank.
Ohio is one of only four states that do not test fuel quality and octane. How important is this? Channel 19 in Cleveland recently tested fuel quality at twelve gas stations in that area. Three of them failed the test. That is a 25 percent failure rate. People paying for high octane were getting regular octane fuel.
That failure rate is not inconsistent with other states and areas that checked fuel before beginning quality testing began. It is a safe bet that without such testing; one in five people paying for high octane gas are not getting it.
Aside from being ripped off, if your vehicle requires high octane and you are not getting it could cause your engine to run poorly. Without an active fuel quality testing program you could be getting impurities which could damage your engine.
Here’s the best part. Our office could test for fuel quality at the same time we test for volume. When we visit local gas stations we could add a quality check. Aside from the one time cost of hand held testers we could provide this critical service with existing staff, from our existing budget with little additional cost.
So why hasn’t this basic consumer protection been instituted?
The State Legislature has refused to give us the authority to do so. Efforts to gain this ability dating back at least fifteen years have been repeatedly thwarted by petroleum industry lobbyists in Columbus.
Most recently the petroleum industry succeeded in giving authority for testing fuel quality to the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA). They had to know that ODA had no funds to set up such a program, much less to duplicate the inspectors which County Auditors already have in place and on the job across the state.
I hope members of the next State Legislature will be able to stand up to the lobbyists and give us the ability to provide this critical service to consumers. You should have some assurance that you are really getting what you are paying for at the gas pump.
May 26th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Righto! There is nothing in this article I disagree with. Expand Ohio’s authority to quality test our fuel. Not only can putting a lower octane fuel in your engine cause it to run poorly, it can be potentially damaging to your engine by causing premature-ignition during the compression phase.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Thanks to the GOP controlled legislature we are likely being defrauded on our fuel purchases on a regular basis.
May 27th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The GOP has controlled the Ohio legislature for three decades, so we know precisely where to place the blame for the lack of consumer protections regarding gasoline (among other things). It would be interesting to see how much money the convenience store/gas station/petroleum lobby has given the Ohio GOP over the years to put off this legislation.
May 27th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Sounds like expanding govt to me. Leave the market place to do what it does without govt intrusion. And who is going to pay for the extra personnel, labs, transportation that goes along with this testing. We need less govt not more. What is Dusty doing. Or maybe Dusty is making more jobs for all the inner city sloutches that need work, that need to be kicked off the govt dole. Wait that’s what Obama is trying to do, make more govt jobs. Never mind.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Sefu, when you allow the marketplace to reward deceit, then you reduce the profitability of running an honest business at the expense of making a few very very rich.
May 28th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Dusty is proposing a solid idea that should have the support of every Ohio consumer. I am amazed that CincyCapell would turn this into a baseless partisan accusation against a political party. Society cannot survive if we think everyone with a different party affiliation is the enemy. Dusty Rhodes is a good example that the letter after your name is not a key to your character or fiscal responsibility.
May 28th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Are you kidding me, Ed? This is exactly something that the Ohio Democratic Party fought for the authority to implement, while the GOP fought against them with specious arguments about “big government”, “hurting private enterprise”, and “the effect it will have on companies’ bottom line”.
I think that when one party opposes it, and another supports it, the party (and the representatives themselves) supportive of the idea deserves the credit.
This is a solid idea. It does have the backing of the majority of Ohio consumers.
The same goes for requiring the gas companies to put temperature-sensitive counters on their pumps. In Canada, where it is much colder and the amount of gas dispensed by the machine more often might exceed the counter on its face, the oil companies and their “private market” decided to install those more costly sensors (at your expense, thank you very much) on their pumps. Here down south, it is less cold and they opt not to because the consumer is getting screwed and the error is in favor of the oil companies. Again: The GOP are against this because “it is intervention in the private marketplace”.
Basically, if the private marketplace screws over the consumers, the GOP tells us to take it. If the private marketplace screws over big business, well big business just raises their costs (which you pay for) to invest in eliminating the means by which they are being screwed.
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm
If we can eliminate the name calling and the ridiculous attacks on one party or another, the facts are these.
The County Auditors Association of Ohio have been lobbying state legislators to put “into place a system to assure that people are getting what they pay for at the pump. A fuel quality testing program will have direct benefit to consumers. The Ohio Department of Agriculture would develop and provide training and statewide certification to Weights and Measures employees who are currently out in the field testing the accuracy of the quantity of gasoline. With new legislation and training, inspectors could test the quality as well.”
However, in July 2008 The Ohio Office of Budget and Management (OBM) has submitted an amendment to a Corrections Bill that would give
the Ohio Department of Agriculture increased authority over fuel quality standards. The Ohio House and Senate Republican Caucus believe that this issue should not be addressed in a Corrections bill. Additionally, the bill as written provided for additional fees on the retailers. The trade group associated with fuel retailers position was and is that any fuel quality testing must be regulated on a state-wide basis,not a county by county basis, and no increased fees of any kind should be
assessed upon the fuel retailer – I would add especially not in the current economic environment.
It is far too easy to point fingers and say “they are against…” whatever feel good program is being discussed without taking the time to learn all of the facts.
I would also like to point out the current president and the immediate past president of the County Auditors Association [who have been the major force pushing this regulation] are both elected Republican officials.
There is a reason and a purpose for government, not all government is bad government, but it is possible there is a better way to implement this than forcing it through in unrelated legislation without a full hearing.
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
I was wondering what the other 3 states are that do not require testing and what they are doing about it. Anybody know the other 3 states?
July 22nd, 2010 at 5:57 am
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