NACS GR Director Shares Legislative Update with Fuel Marketer News

Paige Anderson provides an in-depth look at what her association is keeping an eye on this year.

March 17, 2017

WASHINGTON – Paige Anderson, NACS government relations director, gives Fuel Marketer News an inside look at the issues facing the convenience store and gas station industry in Congress. Here’s a brief excerpt from that interview in the March 2017 issue.

On the initial impression of NACS on the Trump administration. “I think the word of the day is ‘unpredictable.’ Regardless of party, this administration is truly unique. We have a president who is not using the traditional playbooks on how policy moves, so we can’t predict anything. It’s hard to tell where he’s going to fall on certain issues.”

On the Renewal Fuels Standard (RFS) and Trump. “We know the new EPA Administrator [Scott Pruitt] has some concerns about the RFS. However, [he showed support] in testimony before the Senate and on the campaign trail; President Trump assured—particularly Midwestern voters—that they would not be completely gutting the RFS. The question is, if they’re not going to get rid of it, what are they going to do with it? Are they going to tinker around the edges to make the program more usable, are they going to make significant changes to the RFS or are they going to punt it to Congress?”

On the Trump administration’s infrastructure bill. “The infrastructure bill comes down to money—how you pay for it. We want great roads, but we have some concerns if folks want to try and toll existing federal highways. There’s a gas tax in place to pay for that. Our folks have built their convenience stores and gas stations based on the on-ramps and off-ramps of these highways. Our fear is, if we try to put private tolling in place on existing infrastructure, it would hurt the ability for consumers to get on and off those ramps. That would be problematic for us. We’re about convenience, and that would certainly complicate matters.”

On the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. “The Durbin Amendment on debit reform has been so valuable for our industry. For the first time, we were able to create some competition for our retailers in terms of how those payments are processed with the processors. We don’t want to lose ground in that area.”

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