After losing significant federal funding for transportation projects, legislators in Olympia agreed to increase a state tax on fuel from 37.5 cents to 44.5 cents; that price bump started this Saturday.

But as Jim Camden, reporter for the Spokesman Review in Spokane points out, drivers won’t necessarily see that bump right away.

“Motorists don’t directly pay the tax on an individual purchase at the pump; it’s not like a sales tax on a pair of shoes,” Camden wrote last week. “It’s collected from distributors and passed on to retailers, who ostensibly factor it into their prices. For a gas station, the 7-cent tax increase — which will drive the total federal and state tax on a gallon of regular or premium to 62.9 cents in Washington — is just part of the equation that goes into setting the price at the pump.”

The biggest cost of gasoline is the wholesale price, which fluctuates, Tim Hamilton, executive director of the Automotive United Trades Organization, said. The wholesale price often goes down in August, which could mask the tax increase, but it could go up, and the price at the pump could jump more than 7 cents.

For those interested in the fluctuations of gas prices, here’s another interesting tidbit: The price of crude oil is quietly crumbling once again. CNNMoney reports that oil has plunged nearly 20 percent in July and it briefly dipped below $47 a barrel last week.

Why? The American energy revolution has created a massive supply glut and the tepid global economy is depressing demand growth.

That means we’ll see sub-$2 gallons of gas at thousands of U.S. stations by December, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

Industry insiders expect these dynamics to persist, keeping energy prices cheap for some time, CNN reports.

Kudos for P.A., love for Chattanooga

The battle for supremacy of social media-driven popularity was fun and all, but the communities of Port Angeles and Chattanooga, Tenn., are buddies now.

A warming, heartfelt groundswell of support is going to the Tennessee town beset by tragedy after the shooting deaths of five servicemen there on July 16.

Leslie Kidwell Robertson of Revitalize Port Angeles reached Chattanooga last week with 16 banners heavy with ink, featuring messages from peninsula residents showing support for their support.

Robertson and company led an effort to battle Chattanooga in May as the two cities were finalists in Outside magazine’s “Best Town Ever” online contest. Chattanooga won the contest.

Just a few weeks later, the shootings led members of the the Revitalize group to reach out, starting with a single sympathy banner at Port Angeles City Hall.

According to the Peninsula Daily News, Robertson was met in Tennessee by Vicki Hawkins, a Port Angeles native who now lives in Chattanooga, and the two visited Chattanooga National Cemetery where two of the murdered service members were buried, and to the two memorials where the July 16 shootings took place, Robertson said.

The blob is on the way

Weird things are happening off the Pacific Coast, notes The Oregonian writer Tara Kulash.

A warm-water mass that scientists call “the blob” is making life in our seas a little crazier. Species such as sea stars, marine birds and sardines are dying along Washington, Oregon and northern California coasts.

According to Bill Peterson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2013 the Gulf of Alaska’s usual winter storms didn’t show up to cool down the Pacific, which gave rise to an expanse of warmer water. Since then it has spread to the entire North Pacific from California to Canada, spanning 2,000 miles from Baja, Mexico, to Alaska, and stretching 500 miles wide.

In addition to killing off scores of species, the blob also is having some adverse effects on others: Brown pelicans are refusing to mate while spreading algal blooms, shutting down commercial and recreational fishing and generally unfavorable conditions for salmon and other cold-loving marine species.

“We’re seeing warm water everywhere, from Olympia to Bellingham,” Christopher Krembs, Department of Ecology senior oceanographer, said.

Read more about these changes at ecologywa.blogspot.com/2015/07/puget-sound-waters-left-sweltering.html.

Could it get stranger? Scientists say yes. The “blob” likely is getting a warm push from the cyclical warm-water weather event El Niño this winter. Scientists say there is a greater than 90 percent chance of El Niño this winter and an 80 percent chance it lasts into the spring, KOMO News’ Scott Sistek says.

“This winter may already be a lost cause for much in the way of lowland snow and puts serious doubts into getting much in the way of mountain snow either,” Sistek wrote in his blog (www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott) last week.

Not that it’s all bad news. Associated Press writers note that, with regard to this year’s El Niño, “In California, they’re counting on it to end a historic drought; in Peru, they’ve already declared a pre-emptive emergency to prepare for devastating flooding. It’s both an economic stimulus and a recession-maker. And it’s likely to increase the price of coffee, chocolate and sugar … Around the world, crops fail in some places, thrive elsewhere. Commercial fishing shifts. More people die of flooding, fewer from freezing. Americans spend less on winter heating. The global economy shifts.”

And then, there’s the possibility of a “Sharknado” happening here in the Pacific Northwest. (See Sistek’s July 22 blog post.)

Scooter on the mend

It’s been a rough past few weeks for Olympic Peninsula sports icon Scooter Chapman. The longtime sports announcer on KONP 1450, former Sequim Gazette columnist, sports editor at the Peninsula Daily News/Port Angeles Evening News and sports referee/umpire (among other things) had a bad spill at his home not long ago that tore muscles and ligaments off the top of both knees.

He went to recover at Crestwood Health and Rehabilitation Center in May and only recently did Chapman, now in his early 80s, get clearance to go home.

In late July he was back on the job, announcing for the Sonny Sixkiller Husky Golf Classic at The Cedars at Dungeness golf course — sharing memories and ribbing the former UW jock greats while enjoying the view near the first tee box.

Making his way up the steps at Port Angeles’ Civic Field press booth is his next challenge and that’ll come this fall.

Not even the robots are safe

HitchBOT, a hitchhiking robot — yeah, you read that right — that made cross-country trips across Canada, the Netherlands and Germany, made it all of 300 miles across the U.S. But two weeks after beginning its U.S. trip in Boston, the robot was vandalized in Philadelphia and that ended the robot’s short hitching career.

HitchBOT was developed as a kind of social experiment. Since it doesn’t move and traveled by itself, it required friendly folks to take it from place to place. For the most part, its developers report, things went smoothly. It got to sit in the cockpit of an Air Canada plane, visit Dutch art galleries and, in the U.S., got a trip to Fenway Park and midtown Manhattan.

And then, it got to Philly.

Name that moose calf

And finally … keepers at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville determined the moose calf born on July 17 is a girl and now they want help naming the adorable creature. The park’s first moose calf in 15 years will get a name reflective of its Northwest heritage. Keepers have narrowed the field to Willow, Aspen and Lily.

Vote now at www.nwtrek.org; voting runs through Aug. 31. Northwest Trek staff plan to announce the name Sept. 1, which marks the beginning of the rut or breeding season.

Reach Sequim Gazette editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.