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Follow TURFFuel tax theft? Dozens of gas pumps not inspected, out of compliance under Staples
CBS 19 News in Tyler, TX, did an expose' on Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples' widespread lack of timely inspections of gas pumps. Staples' opponent, Hank Gilbert, who helped establish TURF, found dozens of gas stations that have outdated inspection stickers and/or are out of compliance, and he found many that had NEVER even been inspected EVER with NO sticker at all (meaning they're NOT paying the state ANY gas tax revenues, they're completely "off the grid" so to speak)! Hank even found one that hadn't been inspected since Rick Perry was Agriculture Commissioner in 1997! Such a shoddy inspection process potentially costs taxpayers millions in lost gas tax revenue badly needed to fix our roads and keep them FREEways. Staples, like Perry, seems all too happy to starve the gas tax so they can push TOLL ROADS, which cost the taxpayers 10-1,000 times more per mile than gas tax.
Watch the CBS 19 TV report here.
Get a load of this...at the exact same time Hank was holding a press conference to expose this neglect, someone from the Ag Dept shows up across the street to FINALLY inspect the pump that hadn't been inspected since 1997. He says those that aren't licensed don't get inspected and that there's no mechanism in place for them to know if a station is unlicensed so they essentially stay "off the grid" unless they get complaints about it. You bet Todd Staples heard complaints about this pump and rushed his guy out there to update those stickers (too bad for him Hank and the TV cameras were there, too!).
Check out the lack of stickers and expired inspection stickers in just ONE county here.