OPMCA Connection
Keeping You Informed!


OPMCA Connection keeps you informed and current on regulations from all state and national agencies as well as laws pertaining to the petroleum marketing/c-store industry.
OPMCA STAFF

Candace McGinnis
Executive Director  
Candace@opmca4you.com 

Hannah Fite
Director of Member Services  
Hannah@opmca4you.com

OPMCA  
6420 N. Santa Fe, Suite B
Oklahoma City, OK 73116
Phone: (405) 842-6625 
(800) 256-5013 
Fax: (405) 842-9562
OPMCA WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS:
EMPIRE PETROLEUM
Empire Petroleum
Marketer
Milton Davis
8350 N Central Expy.
Suite M2185
Dallas, TX 75206
Phone: (214) 989-4253
Transit Energy Group, LLC
Transit Energy Group, LLC
Marketer
Hunter Wakefield Fickey “Wake”
501 River Street
Suite 300
Greenville, SC 29601
Phone: (864) 626-5553
OPMCA DATES TO SAVE:
2020 OPMCA Member Day at the Capitol
Tuesday March 24th, 2020
9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Nothing you do is more important for your business, your industry and your association. Please join us at the 2020 OPMCA Member Day at the Capitol and register today!

Please join OPMCA as we host a Member Day at the Capitol! We want to get you in front of legislators from your district to create more influence in stopping some of the proposals that are aimed at our industry. We will provide an issue briefing, talking points and assist in getting you to your legislators.

All OPMCA members - especially Board members, Marketers members, C-store members, Associate members and Partner members - should attend and bring key employees, family members and prospective members. The more bodies walking the Capitol halls, the better!

Lunch will be served and there is no charge to attend OPMCA's Member Day at the Capitol. However, we need to know if you will be attending so that we can order an appropriate number of meals and have your name badge printed and ready for this event.

Make sure to bring plenty of business cards to leave with your elected officials.

If you have any questions, please contact the OPMCA office. Thank you for actively participating in YOUR Association!
2020 OPMCA Convention
Registration NOW OPEN!
The 2020 OPMCA Convention will be held on May 5th, with the Oklahoma Super Trade Show the following day on May 6th. OPMCA encourages all members to attend and participate in convention activities. Online registration is now open!
May 5 - May 6, 2020 Tentative Schedule of Events

Tuesday, May 5th:
  • 7:00 AM - Golf Tournament at the Golf Club of Edmond
  • 8:00 AM - Shotgun Start
  • Luncheon and Golf Prizes at the end of Tournament
  • 6:30 PM - OPMCA Chairman's Evening Honoring Kurtis Hutchinson at the Devon Boathouse

Wednesday, May 6th:
  • 7:00 AM - Inspirational Breakfast at the Skirvin Hotel
  • 9:00 AM - Oklahoma Super Trade Show Opens
  • 3:00 PM - Trade Show Floor Closes
  • 7:00 PM - Supplier Dinners (Announced by Suppliers)
2019-2020 Board of Directors

Jerry Davidson, Chairman  
 Pete's Corporation

Tommy Shreffler
OnCue Marketing, LLC

Teresa Hollenbeck
Red Rock Distributing Company

Kurtis Hutchinson
Hutchinson Oil Company

Jason Flinn
Flowers Oil Company

Rob Toth
Coffeyville Resource
Friday, March. 13, 2020
  • USDA Announces $100 Million Grant Program for E15 Infrastructure Upgrades

  • House Passes Legislation Banning Flavored Tobacco Sales

  • CDC Recommendations for Businesses Regarding Coronavirus

  • FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Identifies Nearly 8,000 Substance Abuse Violations in First Weeks of Operation

  • PMAA to Meet with OMB to Support Key Provisions in Driver Hours of Service Reform Rule

  • SNAP Expected to Complete Rollout of its EBT Cards by October

  • Are you ready? Oklahoma REAL ID checklist
USDA Announces $100 Million Grant Program for E15 Infrastructure Upgrades
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will publish a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) of up to $100 million in competitive infrastructure grants to promote the distribution of higher ethanol and biodiesel blends. The grant money will be made through the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) and is available to assist retail fueling and biodiesel facilities with converting equipment to handle higher biofuel blends such as E15 and B20. Eligible entities for HBIP grants include: retail fueling stations, convenience stores, hypermarket fueling stations, fleet facilities, etc. Consideration for eligibility will also be given to biodiesel terminal operations and home heating oil distribution networks. Grants for retail gasoline stations will be made available for the installation of fuel pumps, related underground storage tank system equipment and other infrastructure. 

PMAA submitted written comments to the USDA requesting priority for applicants converting retail infrastructure to E15 compatible equipment. PMAA requested that funding not be limited to dispensers alone, but available for all UST system equipment. The USDA will launch the program in the early spring and will provide information on the application process and evaluation criteria in an upcoming notice. PMAA will report on these requirements as they are made available
House Passes Legislation Banning Flavored Tobacco Sales
Senate Not Likely to Vote on the Bill

At the end of February, the House passed H.R. 2339, the “Reversing the Youth Tobacco Epidemic Act of 2019,” by a vote of 213-195. 17 Democrats voted against the bill and 5 Republicans voted for the bill. The legislation, which is sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL), would wipe out a wide range of popular flavored tobacco products from convenience store shelves which could hurt businesses and threaten the larger economy.

Specifically, the bill: 

  • Prohibits flavored tobacco products (includes menthol cigarettes, flavored cigars, and flavored chewing tobacco).
  • Increases user fees (FDA will have the authority to collect user fees from all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. It also increases the total amount of user fees collected each year by $100 million).
  • Bans all non-face-to-face sales of all tobacco products including delivery sales; and
  • Makes it unlawful to market, advertise or promote any e-cigarette product to individuals under the age of 21. This includes requiring manufacturers of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to be held to the same advertising and sales requirements currently applied to the sale, distribution, and use of traditional cigarettes.

Although the House passed the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is not likely to bring the bill up for a vote in the Senate. PMAA opposes the bill because it is adult prohibition. As with alcohol and marijuana, banning products to dictate adult behavior doesn't work. Instead, it drives consumers to the illegal market, which hurts small businesses.

CDC Recommendations for Businesses Regarding Coronavirus
Trump Administration to Use Portion of LIHEAP Funds to Fight It

As reported on February 14 by PMAA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has posted interim guidance for businesses and employers to plan and respond to the 2019 novel coronavirus, now officially renamed COVID-19. Click here to view the guidance. CDC will update this interim guidance as needed and as additional information becomes available. For general and other useful information regarding COVID-19, please click here. CDC print resources to share with employees are also available here, including, “What you need to know” and “How to stop the spread of germs”

To fund the fight against the coronavirus, the Trump Administration announced this week that it will be shifting up to $136 million in funding from certain health programs. Unfortunately, however, of that $136 million, more than $37 million dollars is expected to be tapped from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that is vital in serving low income consumers of home heating fuel. PMAA is working with the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition (NEUAC) to respond appropriately. 

FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse Identifies Nearly 8,000 Substance Abuse Violations in First Weeks of Operation
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released data from February following the first weeks of operation of its Commercial Driver’s License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. The information released showed that the clearinghouse has detected and identified nearly 8,000 positive substance abuse tests of commercial drivers since January 6, 2020. The clearinghouse now has more than 650,000 registrants.
“We’ve seen encouraging results from the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, but there’s still work to do to ensure we identify more drivers who should not be behind the wheel. The clearinghouse is a positive step, and the Agency continues to work closely with industry, law enforcement, and our state partners to ensure its implementation is effective,” said FMCSA Acting Administrator Jim Mullen.  
The clearinghouse is aimed at improving road safety by providing FMCSA and employers with the necessary tools to identify drivers who have violated federal drug and alcohol testing program requirements and are prohibited from operating a Commercial Motor Vehicle. The goal of the clearinghouse is to ensure that such drivers receive the required evaluation and treatment before they have the opportunity to resume driving.  
Those required to register for the clearinghouse include:

  • Employers of commercial driver’s license (CDL) and commercial learner’s permit (CLP) holders, or their designated service agents, and medical review officers who report drug and alcohol program violations that occurred on or after January 6, 2020;

  • Employers or their designated service agents who conduct required queries which inform them whether prospective or current employees have drug and alcohol program violations in their clearinghouse records. Employers must purchase a query plan before conducting queries in the clearinghouse – query plans must be purchased from the FMCSA clearinghouse website only;

  • Drivers who respond to employer consent requests or would like to view their clearinghouse record when applying for a job; and

  • Substance abuse professionals who report on the completion of driver initial assessments and driver eligibility for return-to-duty testing for violations committed on or after January 6, 2020.

There is no cost for registration. Commercial drivers are not required to immediately register for the clearinghouse, but will need to register to respond to an employer’s request for consent prior to a pre-employment query or other full query being conducted. In addition, employers must be registered during the first year of implementation to ensure they are able to conduct the required annual query on all employed drivers.
Combatting drug abuse has been a top priority of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Trump Administration. President Trump has brought attention to the nation’s opioid crisis by declaring it a nationwide public health emergency and has implemented critical federal initiatives to help reduce opioid abuse. 
FMCSA’s clearinghouse website contains important resources, including user brochures and instructional aids with step-by-step registration instructions for all users. Users can visit https://clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov to access these resources.
The clearinghouse is a secure online database that allows FMCSA, employers of CDL drivers, State Driver Licensing Agencies, and law enforcement officials to identify – in real time – CDL drivers who have violated federal drug and alcohol testing program requirements, and thereby improve safety on our nation’s roads.

PMAA to Meet with OMB to Support Key Provisions in Driver Hours of Service Reform Rule
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) last week referred the Hours of Service (HOS) regulatory relief rule over to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for final approval. OMB is the last step in the regulatory process before a rule is finalized and published in the Federal Register. The rule is important to petroleum marketers and heating fuel dealers, if approved, because it would:

  • Extend the current 100 air mile short-haul motor carrier exception from recording driver hours of service to 150 miles.

  • Extend the 12-hour maximum on duty period for drivers under the short-haul exception to 14 hours per day.

  • Extend by two hours the driving period for drivers encountering adverse weather. The adverse driving exception allows CDL drivers to add two hours to their 11-hour on duty driving limit so long as they go off-duty after the 14th hour. 

PMAA has a meeting scheduled with OMB officials to provide one final push for the important regulatory reform rule. PMAA initiated the request for HOS regulatory relief in a meeting with FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez and his deputies two years ago, before the current rule was proposed. Specifically, PMAA asked the FMCSA Administrator for an extension of the short-haul exception distance limitation from 100 miles to 150 miles so that drivers travelling beyond the 100-mile limit would not trigger the requirement to log their daily HOS which they currently are not required to record. PMAA’s request for the mileage extension is important to petroleum marketers and heating fuel dealers because daily HOS logs must now be recorded on expensive and complicated electronic recording devices. The mileage extension is also important in the event drivers are required to travel to more distant terminals for supply in times of supply shortages from inclement weather, refinery shutdowns, etc. 

PMAA requested FMCSA to extend the 12-hour on-duty maximum for short-haul drivers to 14 hours. PMAA told the FMCSA that lengthening the daily on-duty maximum to 14 hours would put short-haul drivers on par with other categories of drivers who enjoy a HOS recording exception without the loss of two hours of on-duty time. Moreover, PMAA pointed out there is no justification for the reduction of on-duty hours for short haul drivers in the first place. PMAA also requested that driver wait time at terminals be counted as off-duty time rather than onduty as currently required under the HOS regulations. 

The content of the final rule sent to OMB is unknown, but it is likely that one or more of PMAA’s requests will be adopted. Publication of the final rule is likely to occur within the next 60 to 90 days.

SNAP Expected to Complete Rollout of its EBT Cards by October
By October, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP) is expected to complete its rollout of EBT cards nationwide according to an article this week in Payments Journal. 

While most national retail chains integrate EBT payments into their point-of-sale (POS) systems, there are 256,000 merchants that are eligible to accept SNAP nationwide and many of the smaller convenience stores and grocers have needed to “layer separate, antiquated and expensive POS terminal on top of their systems, which results in juggling multiple card readers, paying additional costs for software and hardware, and hurting check-out efficiency,” according to Payments Journal author Josh Wiles.
 
EBT payment is still dominated by legacy terminals which puts those businesses at compliance risk. “Since SNAP acceptance has specific reporting rules, merchants must also consider how to accurately report via two separate POS systems. This may require significant manual input, which is not only time-consuming but prone to human error. This is a step that cannot be overlooked; violating the rules of SNAP acceptance can result in fines or disqualification from the program. More often than not, merchants attempt to process EBT payments in an ad hoc manner that increases the probability for errors and fraud and puts merchant compliance at risk.”
 
Payments Journal urges, “It is time that the payments evolution also includes smaller supermarkets, convenience stores and bodegas who accept EBT. Adopting a modern POS solution that accepts all payments, including SNAP and WIC, provides benefits to the merchants, the consumer and the wider community.”

Are you ready? Oklahoma REAL ID checklist
Officials say in a little over a month, the state will begin offering REAL IDs to Oklahomans ahead of the October deadline.

The REAL ID Act was put in place in 2005 to improve the reliability of state-issued ID’s, making it harder for terrorists to obtain fake identification.

In 2007, Oklahoma passed a law that said our state wouldn’t comply with the REAL ID Act, citing concerns about how residents’ information was stored.

Over the last few years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has given Oklahoma several extensions to meet the requirements in the  REAL ID Act.

In 2017, House Bill 1845 was signed into law, which would give Oklahomans the choice of  either getting a REAL ID-compliant license  or keeping their current Oklahoma driver’s license. Oklahoma is still one of just a few states that are not REAL ID-compliant.

In less than seven months, officials with the TSA say the REAL ID Act will be in full effect at airports and government facilities across the country.

TSA officials say the REAL ID Act will be implemented on Oct. 1, 2020. While travelers will be able to use U.S. passports or military IDs to board flights in 2020, they fear the millions of Americans who use state-issued IDs will be caught off guard if they are not already REAL ID compliant.

At this point, officials believe around 650,000 Oklahomans will need a REAL ID before Oct. 1, 2020.

Officials with the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety told KFOR that they are still on track to begin issuing REAL IDs on April 30, 2020 at select locations in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

The state will then be able to issue REAL IDs across Oklahoma by September of 2020.

With only a third of Americans equipped with Real ID, concerns are mounting ahead of the looming federal Oct. 1 deadline. In Oklahoma, however, state officials are confident they can get it done.

As state officials prepare to start issuing REAL IDs, authorities say Oklahomans need to also be prepared for the rush. To make things go smoothly, you will need to bring several identifying items with you.

First, you will need to provide (1) proof of identity or lawful presence in the United States. The document must be an original or a certified copy. Notarized documents are not accepted.

Accepted items include:
  • State-issued birth certified
  • Unexpired U.S. passport
  • Unexpired permanent resident card
  • Unexpired exmployment authorization card
  • Valid, unexpired foreign passport with a valid, unexpired U.S. visa and valid I-94 issued by DHS
  • Naturalization certificate
  • Consular report of birth abroad
  • Certificate of citizenship

You must also provide (1) proof of your Social Security number. It must be an origianl or certified copy. Notarized documents are not accepted.
Accepted items include:

  • Current W-2 or 1099 showing full Social Security number
  • Current pay stub showing full Social Security number
  • Social Security card
  • Non-SSA 1099 form

Finally, you must provide two (2) proofs of your current Oklahoma address. Both your name and current residential address must appear on the documents. Junk mail or personal letters will not accepted.
Accepted items include:

  • Copy of previous year’s federal or Oklahoma tax return filing
  • Utility bill 
  • Installment loan contract from a bank or other financial institution
  • Current deed, mortgage, monthly mortgage statement or a lease
  • Property tax bil or receipt dated within the last 12 months
  • Professional license issued by an Oklahoma governmental agency
  • Certified copy of court order
  • Valid concealed carry permit
  • Current certificate for eligibility for exchange visitor status, W-2 wage or 1099 tax from from previous year
  • Social Security Administration document within the last 12 months
  • Oklahoma high school college, university or technology center transcript for current school eyar
  • Transportation Security Administration letter or TWIC card
  • Oklahoma motor vehicle title or registration
  • Oklahoma boat title or registration
  • Tribal vehicle title or license
  • Sales tax or business license
  • Current homeowner or renter insurance policy or statement
  • Public assistance benefit card and correspondence dated within 12 months
  • Correspondence from Oklahoma state agency or federal agency with current address
  • Current documents issued by U.S. military
  • Oklahoma agriculture exemption permit card
  • Pilot’s license
  • Oklahoma voter registration card