Motorists may not be happy about gas prices pushing $4 a gallon, but at least they're getting what they're paying for, say Department of Agriculture (MDA) officials. Mike Pinagel, director of the department's Consumer Protection Section, told the Michigan Agriculture Commission this week that 99.8 percent of gas stations inspected last year were pumping out the advertised quantity and quality of gasoline. This year shows 98 percent compliance. Surprisingly, the number of gas station complaints to the MDA is down about 50 percent from the same time a year ago, Pinagel added.

FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is providing posters to encourage retail stores that sell raw fruits, vegetables and fish to participate in the point-of-purchase nutrition information program (21 CFR 101.42 through 101.45).

AFPD’s efforts that retailers receive some relief from provisions of the new Michigan Business Tax (MBT) has been received favorably by legislators. Senate Bill 1038 was to take away the "tax on a tax" provisions of the MBT, under which businesses are required to include in their taxable base sales and use taxes, fuel taxes, cigarette taxes, alcoholic beverage taxes, communications/video taxes and utility taxes, as well as state-mandated revenue such as bottle deposits that are later refunded. The case will also be considered by the House.

The Michigan Senate Commerce & Tourism Committee held a hearing to review bills that would increase the penalties for knowingly returning non-Michigan containers for a refund and would create new penalties for those who organize efforts to collect and return those containers. Testimony at the hearing established a split on how effective the measures would truly be, as well as whether the bills addressed everything that needed to be done. AFPD opposes legislation which requires retailers to retrofit their RVM’s to reject foreign containers, as the cost of retrofitting is approximately $10,000 per machine.

In June, WXYZ-TV 7 Detroit’s Heather Catallo ran a segment that named gas stations cited by the Michigan Department of Agriculture, Weights & Measures Division for violating Department rules. Her report and the list of cited gas stations were posted on the TV station’s Web site. Soon after, someone unknown to Channel 7 copied the list, added a paragraph that these gasoline retailers were “cheating” motorists at the pump, and circulated the information on the Internet.