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Gas, Obama, SEIU, McKenna, and gas

• Published April 17, 2008

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The Service Employees International Union is airing ads for Sen. Barack Obama as his Pennsylvania showdown with Sen. Hilary Clinton approaches Tuesday. Here’s one:

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna is releasing his report on gas prices later this afternoon, after a yearlong investigation. Prices for a tank of unleaded also came up when I talked with unionized state workers in Lacey this week.

Certainly it hurts to go to the gas station these days. But here’s the broad question: Can any politician, or any government for that matter, control the cost of a finite resource in increasing demand?

UPDATE: McKenna’s report has been released. You can find it here. The short version: no illegal activity, in-state differences in price are driven mainly by the cost of transporting the fuel and the level of competition from such sellers as Costco and Safeway, prices are going up, prices are volatile, worldwide demand and high crude oil prices are driving record gasoline prices. Oh, and Washington has the highest gas tax in the country.