Previous Story
Commerce: No pilfering at gas pumps
|
Posted on Jul 18 2008
Responding to fears that gas stations are short-changing motorists by dispensing less gas than the amount for which drivers have paid, the Department of Commerce in a letter sent Friday to Rep. Stanley Torres (R-Saipan) contends that gas stations are playing by the rules.
Torres earlier this week sent a letter to Gov. Benigno Fitial urging his administration to investigate citizen reports that local gas stations are fraudulently overcharging customers by calibrating pumps to release less fuel than station meters say they are getting. With gas prices on the rise, Torres said, consumers need reassurance that they are getting the correct amount of fuel.
“Even a very small error in the calibration of a pump can mean hundreds of gallons of fuel being charged to customers but not delivered,” Torres wrote on Monday.
In a response letter, Commerce Secretary James Santos said that based on his department’s periodic monitoring of gas stations—conducted by measuring the output of pumps with a specialized “prover” tank—all gas pumps are operating within regulations and dispensing an accurate amount of fuel.
“[A]ll the pumps are within the acceptable tolerance requirement” established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology,” Santos writes in the letter.
In addition, Santos detailed the department’s rigorous process of monitoring gas pumps, which is conducted by dispensing gas into a tank in the presence of a Commerce official, who then checks the output and places a seal on the pump to prevent tampering with the calibration. Pumps that fail to meet the output requirements are shut down, he added.
Commerce’s letter comes as gas prices on Saipan have jumped to $5.05 per gallon—the highest in the United States — due to the skyrocketing global price of crude oil, which fell sharply this week to $129 after record highs earlier this month. The average gas price on the U.S. mainland, according to AAA, on Friday stood at $4.14 per gallon, $1.11 above the national average on the same date in 2007.
To ensure good output at gas stations, Santos noted in his letter, motorists should put gas in their cars in the early morning hours or evenings when temperatures are cooler.
