Lawmakers should return to fix affordability

Imagine standing at a gas pump in Lakewood, Vancouver or Spokane, watching the numbers climb with agonizing speed, and knowing that thousands of miles away, the Strait of Hormuz—the world’s most important oil transit point—is once again a geopolitical tinderbox.

When tensions flare in the Middle East, the entire world feels the squeeze. But there is a bitter irony for those of us in the Pacific Northwest. While the global market sets the base price of energy, the “Olympia Premium” ensures that Washingtonians are hit harder, faster and deeper than almost anyone else in America. Global instabili...