Steve Collier, general counsel for the Agency of Agriculture, and Scott Dolan, the agency’s weights‑and‑measures specialist, told the House Transportation Committee on May 22 that the agency has begun licensing and testing public electric vehicle charging stations and is building a regulatory program for accuracy and consumer protection.

“We do want consumers, when they go to an electric vehicle supply equipment and charge their car, we do want them to get what they pay for just the same way that they do when they go to the gas pump,” Collier said.

Collier described a recent build‑out of the agency’s testing capability. The agency purchased level‑2 testing equipment in 2024 (Collier said the equipment cost about $110,000), licensed operators who install chargers, and has tested devices at dozens of locations. Dolan told the committee the agency tested about 237 meters across roughly 46 distinct addresses (the agency treated some clustered charging sites as single locations) and found roughly 8% of meters outside the ±2% tolerance set in the national Handbook 44 standards.

“We did 237 meters, and we did 46 unique locations,” Dolan said. “In our testing, we found 8% of the devices were outside of the 2% allowed tolerance.” He added the errors skewed both ways: about 5% of devices were delivering more energy than metered (giving energy away) and about 3% were registering more than the meter permitted (keeping more than the customer should have paid); ranges of error reported during the hearing reached as high as about 6% on some devices.

Agency staff said they are in the procurement process to buy heavier level‑3 (DC fast‑charger) testing equipment and expect the tester to arrive within weeks after contract execution. Dolan described the level‑3 load emulator as substantially larger (he estimated roughly 350 pounds) and said the agency will begin licensing and testing level‑3 sites once the equipment is in hand.

Collier and Dolan identified statutory and jurisdictional ambiguities they said the committee should consider clarifying: current statutory definitions exempt chargers made “available to a business’s customers” or available only to a closed group (for example, a manufacturer’s proprietary network) from weights‑and‑measures regulation. Collier said that exemption could leave large private networks and utility‑owned charging sites outside of the agency’s oversight unless statute is changed.

“You could have Costco or Tesla placing chargers that are technically not available to the public under the current drafting, and we wouldn’t be able to regulate them,” Collier said, describing the exemption as a potential loophole. Agency staff also noted that public utilities and utility‑owned chargers can fall under the Public Utility Commission or Department of Public Service jurisdiction, complicating a single statewide regulatory approach.

The agency charges a $25 annual license fee per plug for public chargers and reported it had issued roughly 53 licenses to date; the team said it had visited more locations than were yet licensed as it works through compliance and licensing. The agency also reported that a commonly used commercial provider, ChargePoint, had been collecting a 6% sales tax on energy transactions in some cases; Collier said the agency had asked the tax department to confirm whether that practice was correct.

Committee members asked how the agency would handle legacy chargers that pre‑date national standards. Dolan said legacy equipment that is accurate and not deceptive will generally remain in service through its useful life, while new equipment will be expected to meet NIST/Handbook 44 and related national type evaluation standards.

Members and staff discussed enforcement pragmatics: level‑2 tests generally take about 30 minutes, and inspectors sometimes must schedule visits outside normal business hours because chargers can be occupied by a single vehicle for hours. Level‑3 tests require larger load emulators and more logistics; the agency expects to start those tests in the coming weeks once the procurement is complete.

The committee invited the agency to return with a formal update after the summer procurement and urged staff to coordinate with the Department of Public Service and Public Utility Commission on jurisdiction and statutory language. The discussion closed with committee members saying they will review statutory language to consider clarifying definitions for “available to the public” and whether utility‑owned chargers should be within the weights‑and‑measures program.

Less critical details: the agency emphasized an education‑first approach to compliance and said initial inspections have relied heavily on voluntary correction and vendor cooperation; the agency suggested a public demonstration of testing equipment could be scheduled for committee members.