Straight Talk with Hank - Why Texans Should be Concerned about Weights and Measures

The Commissioner of Agriculture's office is over the "weights and measures" for Texas.

This means the Commissioner's office calibrates every gas pump, every grocery market scale, every grocery scanner in the state.

Texas Ag Commissioners used to conduct yearly calibrations to ensure Texas consumers were paying the right cost for the goods they purchased.

Republican Ag Commissioners started this "training ground" program and the two trainees over the last 16 years, Rick Perry and Susan Combs, have instituted legislation to where the scales and pumps are now calibrated only every four years.

The question I ask consumers, particularly urban consumers, is, "how many of you can go buy top-notch electronic equipment and it works perfectly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for four years without malfunctioning?" It just doesn't happen.

So every time you buy gas now, every time you buy any type of packaged meat that has been weighed, or fruits, or vegetables weighed on a scale, you're probably getting less than what you are paying for.

Even according to the current Commissioner's own documents, there a lot of regions in the state where the weights and measures are off. They are never off on the side of the consumer.

I will address this lack of accountability. We need to get the calibration timeframe for weights and measures reduced to a reasonable period. Four years is excessive and costly to consumers.