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The Pay Gap Costs Women $840 Billion Every Year

by SherriAmerson Posted on April 4, 2017

Mother Jones

Each year, Equal Pay Day is a grim reminder that working women still don’t earn as much as their male counterparts. In fact, the persistent wage gap means that, on average, women lose a combined $840 billion every year, according to a new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Using Census Bureau data from all 50 states and D.C., the report concluded that the average woman takes home 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man. And the gap is even worse for women of color: black women earn only 63 cents for each dollar picked up by a white male, while Latina women take home a mere 54 cents. Meanwhile, white women bring home 75 cents per dollar earned by a man, and Asian women earn 85 cents, though some Asian subgroups earn considerably less.

Wyoming, where women earn just 64.4 cents for every dollar brought home by a man, is the worst place in the country to earn a paycheck as a woman. New York and Delaware, where women earn 88.7 and 88.5 cents, respectively, are the two states leading the path to wage equity. The map below, created by the National Women’s Law Center, breaks down the gender wage disparities across the country.

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The annual losses amount to almost $10,500 for each working woman, according to the National Partnership report. And with over 15 million homes headed by women, the pay gap is hard on families. The money lost from the gap could pay for 1.5 years of food for every working woman and her family, 11 months of rent, or 15 months of child care.

“This analysis shows just how damaging that lost income can be for women and their families, as well as the economy and the businesses that depend on women’s purchasing power,” says National Partnership’s President Debra L. Ness. “Entire communities, states and our country suffer because lawmakers have not done nearly enough to end wage discrimination or advance the fair and family friendly workplace policies that would help erase the wage gap.”

During the 2016 Republican National Convention, Ivanka Trump famously championed President Trump’s support of women’s equal paychecks: “He will fight for equal pay for equal work, and I will fight for this, too, right alongside of him.” Despite Ivanka’s inclusion of women’s equality in the workplace as a key message of her platform, the Trump administration has not actually adopted any of her pledges. Instead, last month President Trump reduced paycheck transparency and rescinded other Obama-era workplace protections enshrined in the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order, imperiling women’s overall ability to track the widening gap between men and women’s paychecks.

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The Pay Gap Costs Women $840 Billion Every Year

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Antarctica is about to lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware

by xf0ks040u Posted on August 24, 2016

the biggest loser

Antarctica is about to lose a chunk of ice the size of Delaware

By on Aug 24, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

A massive crack in one of Antarctica’s largest ice shelves has grown exponentially in recent months, and scientists worry a break-off could destabilize the entire structure.

For two years, United Kingdom-based Project MIDAS has been monitoring a large rift in the Larsen C ice shelf, located on the northern end of the Antarctic peninsula. And if the project’s latest findings are any indication, Larsen C could be headed for a similar fate as nearby Larsen A and Larsen B, which collapsed and disintegrated in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

Since March, the last time satellites were able to observe Larsen C, Project MIDAS said the crack has extended nearly 14 miles ― about three miles per month.

“As this rift continues to extend, it will eventually cause a large section of the ice shelf to break away as an iceberg,” according to the report.

Now, measuring some 80 miles in length, the crack could ultimately dislodge a chunk of ice the size of Delaware, The Washington Post reports.

At 21,000 square miles, Larsen C is the largest ice shelf in the region, according to a 2015 report. In recent years, however, what was once a small fracture has rapidly moved through the frozen structure, widening to more than 1,000 feet. The crack, scientists wrote in last year’s report, “is likely in the near future to generate the largest calving event since the 1980s and result in a new minimum area for the ice shelf.”

Project MIDAS previously estimated the breakaway would remove between 9 and 12 percent of the ice shelf.

“The trajectory of the rift now implies that the higher of these two estimates is more likely,” the MIDAS team wrote in its post last week. “Computer modeling suggests that the remaining ice could become unstable, and that Larsen C may follow the example of its neighbor Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event.”

In 2014, more than a decade after its collapse, scientists determined the event was triggered by warming air temperatures.

Since ice shelves float on the ocean’s surface, the calving event wouldn’t immediately raise sea levels. An event of this scale, however, could destabilize the entire shelf, resulting in its disintegration and the release of the glacier ice it holds back ― ultimately raising sea levels.

As for when the iceberg will make its break, that’s hard to say, Martin O’Leary, a glaciologist at Swansea University in the United Kingdom, told The Washington Post.

“It’s a lot like predicting an earthquake ― exact timings are hard to come by,” he told the Post. “Probably not tomorrow, probably not more than a few years.”

When it does, it could spark a vanishing act that resembles what happened at Larsen B, which NASA highlights in the video below:

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Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

by FaithMcnamee Posted on July 6, 2016

Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

By on Jul 5, 2016

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

A temporary halt to the federal government’s plan to cut electric power plant emissions has caused carbon prices in the Northeast’s only cap-and-trade program to plummet, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Carbon prices in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, have fallen 40 percent since the Supreme Court’s decision in February to stay the Clean Power Plan — from their peak at $7.50 per metric ton of carbon dioxide in December to $4.53 per ton in June.

RGGI is America’s first mandatory market-based cap-and-trade program, which places a collective limit on carbon emissions among its nine member states. Power plant emissions under that limit are called “allowances,” and the program stamps a price on them so they can be traded among polluters. Carbon prices are set at quarterly auctions, and proceeds are invested in state renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sustainability programs.

The program is one of the Northeastern states’ strategies to comply with the Clean Power Plan if it withstands court challenges. The program is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions among all the New England states plus New York, Delaware, and Maryland as a way to reduce their contributions to global warming.

Experts disagree about what the sudden drop means for the future of carbon cutting in the Northeast and what direction the prices will go. Long-term low carbon prices could make it cheap to cut carbon throughout the Northeast, or it could chill future investment in renewables and other carbon-cutting measures because it will be less profitable to do so.

RGGI caps member states’ collective annual carbon emissions at a specific level, and they are set to decline 2.5 percent annually through 2020, encouraging states to develop renewables and other low-emissions energy sources to replace highly polluting ones.

RGGI auction prices for carbon pollution are considered low compared to California’s carbon trading market, where carbon emissions have been valued between roughly $12 and $13 per metric ton since 2014. RGGI prices had increased steadily from about $2 per ton 2012 to about $7.50 per ton 2015, but they fell sharply at the auctions held immediately after the Supreme Court decision.

U.S. Energy Information Administration analyst Thad Huetteman said the agency cannot comment on where prices may be headed because there are too many unknowns about RGGI’s future. But he said that if the Clean Power Plan is upheld in court, the EIA’s forecast suggests prices may remain low.

A spokesperson for RGGI declined to comment.

The James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Upstate New York.Nuclear Regulatory Commission

There is wide disagreement about the long-term implications of low RGGI prices and whether they’ll bounce back in the near future.

“Low RGGI prices hamper the region’s ability to pursue additional carbon cuts,” and make clean energy investment less profitable, said Jordan Stutt, a clean energy analyst for the Acadia Center, a New England climate policy think tank.

He said lower prices mean states earn less money from trading carbon, reducing the amount of auction money they will get that can be reinvested in state-run clean energy and energy efficiency programs.

RGGI has not established a carbon emissions cap for after 2020, and a new cap mandating strict emissions cuts could raise prices in the long run, he said.

William Shobe, a University of Virginia public policy professor who was part of the team that designed the RGGI carbon auction, is more optimistic about what low carbon prices mean for carbon cutting in the future.

Shobe said low carbon prices are good news for both the future of the cap-and-trade program and the region’s ability to slash its emissions.

“If you had a choice between high prices and low prices, you’d want low prices because the cost of accomplishing the (carbon cutting) goal is lower,” he said. “That means you’re getting what you want cheaper, and in the end you’ll want to buy more of it.”

The key is that RGGI states’ carbon emissions are determined by the cap they place on them, not the price of those emissions, he said.

“That’s the nice thing about cap-and-trade programs — you’ve got a guarantee you’re going to meet the emissions goal,” Shobe said. “The question is how expensive it’s going to be.”

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Carbon prices are way down, thanks to the Supreme Court’s hold on Clean Power Plan

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An Update on the Yosemite Park Trademark Dispute

by Marjori51B Posted on January 17, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I wrote a post yesterday about a New York company that claims it owns the trademark to various locations at Yosemite National Park. Based on the story I read, this seemed obviously outrageous, and that was the tone I took.

But that was probably wrong. I ended up looking into this issue a little more deeply, and it turns out that the whole thing goes back several years and is actually a fairly pedestrian contract dispute. Here’s a quick outline of what happened:

In 1993, the National Park Service put up the concessions at Yosemite for bid. The winner was Delaware North, which was required to buy the assets of the Curry Company as part of the deal. This included the Ahwahnee Hotel, Camp Curry, and several other pieces of property.
In July 2014 the concessions were once again put up for bid. The winning bidder would be required to pay Delaware North fair market value for the assets it owned, which included real property such as the Ahwahnee and Camp Curry, as well as “other property.”
The Park Service initially valued the “other property” at $22 million. In December 2014 it increased its valuation to $30 million, which included an estimate of $3.5 million for intangible property. Of this, $1.63 million covered trademarks and other intellectual property.
Delaware North disagreed with this assessment. It valued “other property” at about $100 million, which included an estimate of $51 million for intangible property. Of this, $44 million covered trademarks and other intellectual property.
Delaware North filed a protest with the GAO over the Park Service valuation, but in April 2015 the GAO dismissed the protest.
June 2015 Aramark won the Yosemite contract.
In September 2015 Delaware North took the case to court.

And that’s pretty much where we stand today. It turns out there’s nothing inherently outrageous about Delaware North owning some of these trademarks, as even the Park Service admits. “We have not denied the fact that they do own intellectual property,” said Scott Gediman, a spokesman for Yosemite National Park. “But with these trademarks, it’s kind of two issues: One, are these trademarks valid, and, two, what is the value of them?” So this is a pretty routine contract dispute. Which trademarks are legit and which aren’t? Did Delaware North acquire these trademarks “surreptitiously” or with the knowledge of the Park Service? And how much are they worth? Delaware North says they’re worth $44 million. The Park Service says they’re worth $1.63 million. The issue is now in court, and Delaware North says it has offered to allow Aramark free use of the trademarks until the dispute is settled. Yesterday, however, the Park Service announced that it would simply rename everything and make the case moot.

It’s quite possible that Delaware North’s valuation is absurdly high. That’s my guess, since the value of these trademarks is mostly due to being attached to Yosemite Park, not to anything special that Delaware North has done to create or exploit them. But I’m no lawyer and I don’t know. That’s for a court to decide.

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An Update on the Yosemite Park Trademark Dispute

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Jeb Abandons Jeb!

by wlqclksxq Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Perfect last-minute Christmas present for the low-energy person in your life who needs an extra exclamation point: Jeb!

Not the candidate, just his name—upbeat punctuation mark and all. The word has apparently lost its appeal. Even to the candidate.

Last winter, months before Jeb Bush announced he was running for president, a Miami intellectual property attorney filed a trademark request for the word “Jeb!” on behalf of a mysterious Delaware corporation called BHAG LLC. As we discovered this summer, BHAG was an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This phrase came from one of Bush’s favorite business management books, and when he was governor he used this term to motivate his underlings. It wasn’t until Bush, as a declared candidate, filed his financial disclosure form in July that the world learned he directly owned BHAG.

One of BHAG’s few activities was to trademark “Jeb!” As is par for the course, the US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the submission and requested additional information before it would grant the trademark. But according to that office, on November 9 Bush’s application was officially abandoned. Technically, Bush has until January 9 to restart the process, but for now the name is not trademarked and open for anyone else to try to grab.

According to the original application, Bush wanted the name reserved for use on leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff. In April, the USPTO asked BHAG to provide, within six months, written consent from Bush himself to use his name. Bush never responded. So the USPTO issued an abandonment notice regarding the trademark request.

Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

To be fair, Bush has had many other things to worry about these past few months. But his chief antagonist, Donald Trump, did find the time to re-up his hold on “Trump,” and he added a trademark claim to cover the use of his name for books on how to succeed in business and politics.

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Jeb Abandons Jeb!

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Can supermarkets supplement failing schools?

by TracyHosking Posted on September 4, 2015

Education

Can supermarkets supplement failing schools?

By on 4 Sep 2015commentsShare

If there’s one thing we know about education in the United States, it’s that the system is replete with socioeconomic and racial inequities. Now, a new study from researchers at Temple University and the University of Delaware suggests that bringing early childhood education outside school walls could help close that achievement gap. And what better place to start than the supermarket? Unless you’re living on a subsistence farm, sooner or later you are going to be visiting a grocery store. You have to get your food from somewhere — and as food deserts are quenched by initiatives like West Oakland’s People’s Community Market, grocery stores will only grow in terms of accessibility. For low-income communities, the study shows, they might even act as natural extensions of the preschool classroom.

The general idea of The Supermarket Study was to leverage the huge variety of food in a grocery store as a vocabulary builder — and then, in turn, to use this lush nutritional dictionary to help forge logical connections. In practice, it’s pretty unobtrusive: All one needs to do is place a bunch of signs around a supermarket. (Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, an author on the study and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes, “In front of the milk section for example, you might see, “I come from a cow. Can you find something else that comes from a cow?””)

These kinds of semantic cues can encourage educational conversations between parents and children. Hirsh-Pasek lays out the motivation behind the study:

High-quality preschool prepares children for entrance into formal schooling. But preschools cannot do it alone and preschool failures cannot be blamed for the persistent gaps that have plagued American education since 1975. Perhaps it is time to augment debate about universal preschool with discussions of how to build learning communities that enrich children’s experiences at home, in school and beyond.

Enter The Supermarket Study, a way to change the paradigm in early learning as we re-imagine ordinary spaces as opportunities to build smart communities. Everyone has to buy food. And families—be they rich or poor, working one job or three—frequent supermarkets and grocery stores—places where they roll their children in carts through the aisles and meet basic needs in a familiar and unthreatening space. That’s why this unassuming place proved a perfect staging ground for a proof of concept on how we can enrich children’s everyday environments.

By adding and removing the signs and then acting as a fly on the wall, the researchers were able to test whether or not their learning tools would encourage more parent-child interaction, and whether or not any changes varied by socioeconomic status. In many ways, the intervention pulls a feather from the hat of behavioral economics, in which subtle “nudges” are used to effect consumer change. (A prototypical example is placing fruit — as opposed to cake — in the most appealing display cases in order to encourage healthier food choices in a cafeteria.)

The results are promising. In stores in low-income communities, presence of the signs was associated with a 33 percent increase in conversations between parents and children, placing the parental chatter on par with the baseline level apparent in middle-income stores. Interestingly, when the researchers put signs in stores frequented by middle-income customers, they failed to produce the same effect.

The team now plans to expand the reach of the study to more grocery stores and communities to see if they’re onto something. Other future ideas include attempting to take advantage of check-out aisles for math skill development.

“Our focus has been squarely on school reform,” writes Hirsh-Pasek. “And school reform is important. But schools exist within the context of a wider community and if the community does not reinforce the learning opportunities that are outside the school walls, they cannot succeed.”

Source:

When the supermarket becomes a classroom: Building learning communities beyond the school walls

, Brookings.

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Lifting the crude oil export ban would be terrible for the climate

by JanisBurrell Posted on August 21, 2015

Lifting the crude oil export ban would be terrible for the climate

By on 21 Aug 2015commentsShare

Since 1975, the U.S. has restricted the export of crude oil in the name of energy security, and somehow that dirty protectionism even managed to make it through the Reagan era. But perhaps no longer. Republicans in Congress are pushing to allow oil companies to export crude to overseas refineries, and they could put the issue to a vote as soon as next month.

Ending the crude oil export ban would represent one of the largest tweaks in U.S. energy policy in decades, and, from an environmental perspective, not a positive one.

On Friday, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released an analysis pleading for congressional consideration of the broader risks at play, especially as they relate to the environment. The authors argue that the policy change would lead to more oil drilling in the U.S., resulting in an increase in annual carbon and methane emissions, the loss of open lands and wildlife habitats, and risks related to production and transportation like increased prevalence of crude oil train derailment and air quality problems for those living near drilling operations. This is to say nothing of the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we’re to fight off climate change.

Why export in the first place? Aside from the fact that it means oil companies get a larger (more competitive) refinery market, it’s a function of our crusty pals supply and demand. In 2009, U.S. crude oil production started to grow for the first time in decades, and continues to do so today. Most of that growth comes from “tight oil” — the kind you can get at by fracking — and most of that tight oil comes from North Dakota and Texas:

Energy Information Administration

A growing crude oil sector means there’s an increase in supply, which is sometimes grounds to consider exporting surplus to clean up any inefficiencies in the market. But something else tends to happen when you open up a market: Foreign demand increases. This increase means that domestic production of crude oil will have to bump up accordingly (at a faster rate than it’s already growing) to keep up with foreign buyers. As the authors of the CAP analysis write, this makes for a lot more oil wells:

According to data from IHS CERA’s study that was provided to CAP, oil companies would drill an average of 26,385 new oil wells in the United States every year between 2016 and 2030 if the crude oil export ban is lifted, or approximately 7,600 more wells on average per year than if the ban remains in place.

… If these development patterns continue, IHS CERA’s forecasts of new drilling activity suggest that increased oil exports would alone result in the loss of as much as 2,054 square miles of land between 2016 and 2030, or an area larger than the state of Delaware. This means the United States would lose approximately 137 square miles of land to oil infrastructure per year, or an area larger than Arches National Park in Utah, simply to feed foreign demand for U.S. crude oil.

Writing as someone who has gotten lost in Arches National Park, that’s a lot of land. Aside from the environmental reasons to stick with the status quo, the CAP authors make an economic case, too:

[M]any oil refiners argue that the U.S. refinery sector is capable of absorbing any new supply, making it unnecessary to lift export restrictions to balance the market. The AFL-CIO has expressed concern that lifting the export ban would scuttle plans to invest in and expand U.S. refining infrastructure. The United Steelworkers union has communicated similar concerns to Congress. According to a recent study by the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, allowing more crude oil exports could result in $8.7 billion less investment in U.S. refining capacity over the next 10 years.

Put that all together and the argument for lifting the ban falters. “A hasty decision to outsource U.S. refinery capacity might boost oil company profits, but it would also carry a high environmental price tag and create uncertainty for consumers,” said Matt Lee-Ashley, a senior fellow at CAP and an author of the analysis, in a statement. It’s a price tag we can’t afford.

Source:

The Environmental Impacts of Exporting More American Crude Oil

, Center for American Progress.

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A Grist Special Series

Oceans 15


This surfer is committed to saving sharks — even though he lost his leg to one of themMike Coots lost his leg in a shark attack. Then he joined the group Shark Attack Survivors for Shark Conservation, and started fighting to save SHARKS from US.


This scuba diver wants everyone — black, white, or brown — to feel at home in the oceanKramer Wimberley knows what it’s like to feel unwelcome in the water. As a dive instructor and ocean-lover, he tries to make sure no one else does.


This chef built her reputation on seafood. How’s she feeling about the ocean now?Seattle chef Renee Erickson weighs in on the world’s changing waters, and how they might change her menu.


How do you study an underwater volcano? Build an underwater laboratoryJohn Delaney is taking the internet underwater, and bringing the deep ocean to the public.


Oceans 15We’re tired of talking about oceans like they’re just a big, wet thing somewhere out there. Let’s make it personal.

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This Democrat Wants to Double the Gas Tax

by Emilia38Kex Posted on August 16, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story was first published by CityLab and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a year for four years then index it to inflation so it remains effective over time. The move would ultimately bring the fuel tax to 34 cents a gallon—nearly double the existing rate of 18.4 cents.

That might seem like a big bump, but even a gas tax twice as high as the current one would be incredibly low by global standards. A US Department of Energy review of fuel taxes among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 2011 placed the US just about at the bottom of the pack. Kyle Pomerleau of the Tax Foundation recently updated these figures to reflect 2013 tax rates via OECD data—and found very little change.

We’ve charted Pomerleau’s findings here:

CityLab

The US rate of 53 cents a gallon reflects the federal gas tax as well as the average state tax. Adding Carper’s 16 cents wouldn’t budge the US position way at the back of the pack—nor would doubling the entire 53 cent average. As the numbers stand, lawmakers would have to raise the average gas tax at least eight-fold for Americans to pay the steepest rate in the world.

In that context, Carper’s plan seems like quite the bargain. A higher gas tax would help stabilize the Highway Trust Fund, which has staved off bankruptcy in recent years through a series of short-term funding patches and dubious transfers from the general taxpayer fund. And 34 cents is about what the gas tax would be today if it were indexed to inflation anyway, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The legislation even comes with a tax credit to reduce the hardship high fueled costs cause for the car-dependent middle class.

So what’s not to like? The short answer if you’re a federal lawmaker: the entire discussion. Official routinely dismiss gas tax hikes out of hand; as Paul Ryan said this June, We’re not going to raise the gas tax.” As James Surowiecki recently wrote in The New Yorker, the opposition begins with anti-tax conservatives but extends to liberals who fear political reprisal—creating a bloc of Congressional inaction that defies general bipartisan support for road maintenance, as well as common sense:

Indeed, the refusal of Congress to raise the gas tax is the ultimate expression of how reflexive and irrational the resistance to taxes has become. Opposition to higher income taxes has some theoretical justification: higher marginal rates discourage people from working more and investing. Seen in one light, they’re a penalty for success. But no such argument exists against the gas tax: all it does, in essence, is ask drivers to pay for the roads they use.

There are arguably better ways to get drivers to pay for roads—a per-mile driving fee chief among them—but none with the ease of implementation and immediate funding relief that even a modest gas tax hike like Carper’s would provide. Americans should one day strive to pay the full social cost of driving. Until then, recovering enough money to pay for basic highway upkeep is the least that good government can do.

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Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

by AlejandYdp Posted on July 14, 2015

Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

By on 14 Jul 2015commentsShare

The Northeast’s cap-and-trade program generated $1.3 billion in economic benefits for participating states over the last three years. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) also created an estimated 14,200 years’ worth of full-time employment between 2012 and 2014, and it cut residents’ electricity and heating bills by a total of $460 million. That’s according to a new analysis by a group that is creatively named Analysis Group, one of the largest economic consulting firms in the country.

In addition to spurring the economy in the participating states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont (Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out) — the system is succeeding at its primary goal: fighting climate change. CO2 emissions in participating states have fallen by about a third since 2009, when the carbon-trading system went into effect

So much for the argument that cutting greenhouse gas emissions hurts the economy.

Here’s more from the report:

We found lower costs to electric consumers throughout the region, decreases in revenues to the owners of certain power plants, and positive economic impacts across all states, totaling approximately $1.3 billion in economic value added (in 2015 dollars) as a result of RGGI’s second three years (2012-2014). This is on top of what we found for the first three years (2009-2011) of the program: $1.6 billion of economic value added (in 2011 dollars). Thus, considering results found in both our studies, the first six years of RGGI program implementation has continuously generated significant economic value for the RGGI states, while achieving the region’s collective objectives in terms of reducing emissions of CO2.

This research comes out just as debate is heating up over Obama’s Clean Power Plan, to be finalized this summer, which will limit CO2 emissions from power plants around the country. The Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity claims Obama’s plan will cost $41 billion per year, while the Union of Concerned Scientists contends that it will have a net economic benefit of up to $50 billion per year by 2020. Considering the new figures about RGGI’s impact, the UCS analysis looks to be more on the mark.

“We hope regulators across the country — along with policy-makers, utilities, and other stakeholders — are able to draw useful lessons from this report, as they evaluate Clean Power Plan options in their individual states,” report coauthor Andrea Okie said.

So, Analysis Group has the numbers in the Northeast to prove that state lawmakers don’t have to approach the Clean Power Plan with dread. Other groups have similar numbers for the West Coast, where other carbon-pricing schemes are in place. Will these reports be enough to begin shifting the debate? We can hope, but maybe don’t hold your breath.

Source:
Cap & Trade Shows Its Economic Muscle in the Northeast, $1.3B in 3 Years

, InsideClimate News.

Carbon-Trading Program Generates $1.3 Billion in U.S. Northeast

, Bloomberg.

Study: Northeast states benefit economically from carbon cap program

, The Associated Press.

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Here’s more evidence that cutting CO2 pollution can be good for the economy

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Why Does Jeb Bush Have a Mysterious Shell Company?

by FinlaySchulte Posted on June 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last week, the Jeb Bush campaign unveiled its official logo—Jeb!—which is only a slight variation on the logo Bush has used throughout his previous campaigns. As closely associated with the former Florida governor as it is, the trademarked logo belongs to neither the campaign nor the politician. It turns out that it’s owned by a corporate entity called BHAG.

Almost six months before the official logo unveiling, someone formed a Delaware shell corporation called BHAG LLC and used it to apply for a trademark on “Jeb!” A few days after this anonymous shell corporation was created, it was registered again in Florida, with the manager listed as the office manager of Jeb Bush & Associates, Bush’s business consulting firm. Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on who established the shell corporation and why.

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Why Does Jeb Bush Have a Mysterious Shell Company?

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