Meeting for four days in Boston, SIGMA (the Society of Gasoline Marketers of America) members outlined a plethora of legislative [image-nocss] issues facing the convenience store and retail petroleum industries. The issues that SIGMA has rated "priority" and in need of "active leadership" earned the most discussion.
Midterm Elections
SIGMA general counsel Tim Columbus began the legislative session by providing a detailed--and irreverent--review of the recent midterm election but ultimately summed up his expectations for the next two years in Washington in four words: "Not much gets done."
E15 Waiver
Regarding the E15 waiver--allowing the sale of gasoline that's 15% ethanol--Columbus noted issues with the blend wall that will make it difficult to transfer E15 through pipelines, educating the consumer (at this point it's only approved for vehicles built after 2007), and the related indemnification of retailers who sell it. What happens when someone in an older car uses it and starts to have engine trouble?
"We aren't going to be out there at gunpoint telling Bubba that he or she cannot put this into their car," Columbus said.
While the proposed Prevention of Frivolous Ethanol Lawsuits Act of 2010 is intended to provide the necessary protection petroleum retailers need, Columbus is not optimistic it will pass, leaving them with a new type of fuel resulting from "Congress telling EPA 'make this happen'."
"They've been directed to have 15 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2013," Columbus said. "There were only 142 billion gallons of gasoline sold all of last year... This is a case of 'You can't get there from here'."
Interchange Fees
SIGMA applauded the amendment to the Wall Street Reform Act that will ensure debit-card swipe fees are "reasonable and proportional" to a bank's cost of processing the transactions. Legal counsel Elizabeth Glidden remarked, "The reason we won this is because of you," referring to many retailers' petition drives, in which consumers backed the drive to cut interchange fees. However, she added that the recent turnover of the House of Representatives to Republicans could work against further advances on swipe fees.
"They were stunned by this," she said. "That's not likely to happen again."
Commercialization of Rest Stops
Holly Alfano, a lobbyist for NATSO, urged SIGMA members to actively campaign against the commercialization of rest stops, as requested by several states that are looking for new revenue.
"Rather than chose restoring [rest areas] that they can't maintain, they want to add convenience products with the advantage that they're on the right of way," she said. "Ninety percent of our members are within 10 minutes of a highway. but there's no reason to exit the highway if you can pull over and get gas on the right of way."
While Alfano was speaking on behalf of the association representing America's travel plazas and truckstops, Columbus underscored that this issue would affect many more retailers. "Many think of this as only affecting travel centers, but there are infinitely more retail sites this concerns."
ADA Regulation
In September, the Department of Justice published new rules under the Americans With Disabilities Act that Columbus called "30 miles of bad road for this industry." These rules include more than 1,000 new requirements applicable to petroleum retailers, he said, including: Barrier Removal: This obligates facilities to remove structural architectural barriers to accessibility if doing so is "readily achievable." Safe Harbor Provisions: This would require retailers to make certain change from which they are otherwise absolved should they make renovations to their stores. New Accessibility Standards: These include changes to the acceptable slope of wheelchair ramps, side-arrival points and other public entrances.
To truly illustrate the scope of the changes, however, Columbus came back to one new guideline that allows "miniature horses" to be used as "service animals." "You're going to have horses in your stores," Columbus said. "It's only a matter of time before they start feeding at the salad bar."
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