While reading various articles in The Columbian, you might notice ominous-looking ads about fuel prices by Affordable Fuel Washington. But when I tried to Google who was behind those ads, it was not easy information to find. No surprise, I eventually found out that it is funded by Western States Petroleum Association. They have a financial interest in our continued, suicidal addiction to fossil fuels.
The oil and gas industries have essentially been subsidized by our government for years with dirt cheap leases on our public lands and fuel prices that do not reflect the true cost of burning that fuel. We all pay for this warming planet through FEMA bailouts following catastrophic weather events. Exxon used to be at the forefront of research on global warming, acknowledging that we were at a point when mankind would have to turn away from burning fossil fuels because it caused global warming — that was in 1980! Truthfully, we should be paying much more to reflect the true cost of driving cars that burn gas.
