A gasoline conspiracy?

The facts certainly are suspicious. Washington's average gas price of $3.56 a gallon has risen 230 percent since 2003 and is now the fourth-highest in the nation.

But when it comes to allegations of gas price manipulation, the suspects — gas companies and distributors — appear to be not guilty.The state's chief prosecutor, Attorney General Rob McKenna, has issued the first detailed analysis of gas prices around the state in 17 years and found no evidence of collusion or other market manipulation.

The investigation was prompted by a rash of consumer concerns about rising gas prices and wide disparities in price in different communities. The process included around-the-state public meetings and intense number-crunching by a University of Washington economist.

The report pinned the higher prices on a host of factors outside the reach of fuel consumers. Among them are the vagaries of the West Coast market dominated by giant and demanding California; challenges with refineries near capacity, requiring costlier imports to fill the demand; and the skyrocketing worldwide costs of crude oil.

Price differences among cities can be attributed to everything from the costs of transporting fuel from distant refineries to the wide disparities in other costs, such as the price of land.

Another factor every consumer should remember is Washington has the highest gas tax in the nation — 36 cents a gallon. In this state, that's a big part of how we pay for our roads and ferries. Take state taxes out and the state's ranking goes from fourth-highest to eighth.

Today, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Jay Inslee will be sending a letter to President Bush, urging him to increase vigilance at the federal level. They want an energy-fraud task force established at the Department of Justice. Last year, Cantwell was able to insert a provision into law that provided more tools for the federal government to investigate allegations of gas-market manipulation but the rule-making has been slow to start.

As McKenna pointed out, making a profit is not illegal. But his report is a valuable document because it is an answer to troubling speculation.