As Shift warned you, cap and trade is getting expensive – soaring beyond the “pennies” promised by Governor Jay Inslee – and you will be feeling it in the pocket book for months to come. That’s the news from the Washington Policy Center’s Todd Myers, who reports that the “Washington State Department of Ecology released the results of the second auction of allowances to emit CO2 and prices increased 15 percent to $56.01 per metric ton (MT) of CO2. That translates into about 45 cents per gallon of gasoline and 54 cents per gallon for diesel.”

Even the Seattle Times highlighted that that the “price for this month’s auction allowances came in more than $7 higher than the state’s first auction, and more than $25 higher than the most recent auction held for polluting businesses in California and Quebec”. You can read more about how Gov. Inslee is happy that you are paying more at the pump here… Shift, Washington Policy Center, Seattle Times.

You can be excused for not knowing that dockworkers all along the Pacific Coast have been in a nasty labor dispute for a year, though that will soon change KUOW reports as the trade group representing the ports says the longshoremen’s union “is staging concerted and disruptive work actions that have effectively shut down operations at some marine terminals at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Union is also staging similar work actions that have shut down or severely impacted terminal operations at the Ports of Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, and Hueneme.”

You can read about how the unions are seeking to cause long term damage with their latest tactics as “(M)uch of the diverted cargo may never return to the West Coast” here… KUOW.

Over a month after a disturbing incident – already highlighted by Shift – involving two public elementary school principals, cocaine, loaded guns, and their children, the parents at one of the impacted schools finally had the chance to hear from school officials, according to KING5. One parent felt the meeting was only held because the district was caught when someone complained, asking “What if someone didn’t raise their hand, someone didn’t use their voice. Would they still be working there today?”… Shift, KING 5.

Just in case you were wondering, progressives (with the gleeful help of our green governor) in Washington state really are coming for your natural gas stove. And should you think that’s hyperbole, check out this instructional for making gas so expensive that no one can use it, as celebrated by the far-Left blog Sightline. You can read how “Cascadians are swapping gas furnaces for heat pumps, gas stoves for induction cooktops, and gas dryers for electric ones. The ‘electrify everything’ movement is accelerating, spurred by new federal, state, and local incentives” and what that will mean to your pocketbook, since “(W)ithout shutting down gas infrastructure in tandem with electrification, an ever-shrinking number of gas customers will face ever-ratcheting costs to maintain a bloated gas system” here… Sightline Institute.

The irony of the Left cheering on (as Capital Press reports) an “administrative law judge (who) ruled Monday that opponents of the proposed Horse Heaven wind and solar project in southeast Washington will have to make their case without seeing the final environmental impact statement” must be thick for any private sector company that has had to deal with endless environmental delay tactics over the years. You can read about how now it’s the environmentalists demanding that no one needs to see any final environmental reports before making a decision and that local control be rolled right over in the name of what they know is right here… Capital Press.