New Jersey and Virginia Prepare to Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initative to Reduce Carbon Emissions

I’d like to break into the our regularly scheduled doom and gloom, to note a small but important piece of good environmental policy news that last month has poked green shoots up through the policy wasteland of the last 10 months.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is about to get two new members.

RGGI is a consortium of nine New England and Mid-Atlantic states formed to reduce carbon emissions from large power plants through a cap-and-trade system. The program, which applies to power plants with a capacity of larger than 25 megawatts, establishes a region-wide cap on carbon emissions.  Emitters bid in a competitive auction to purchase a permit to emit 1 ton of CO2. They trade in permits when they pollute, or can save unused permits for future use, or sell them to other bidders. States invest the proceeds in energy efficiency or clean energy programs.

The annual cap, which was set originally at 165 megatons of CO2 equivalent in 2008, and adjusted to 91 megatons in 2014, declines by 2.5 percent each year through 2020. The stakeholders are currently negotiating an extension of the program through 2030, which will further reduce CO2.

The first new RGGI member, New Jersey, was an original member of the consortium, but Republican Governor Chris Christie withdrew in 2011, and has vetoed several bills since that would rejoin. The incoming governor, Democrat Phil Murphy, has pledged to rejoin. 

In more exciting news, Virginia is also moving steadily toward joining the RGGI as well.  Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued an executive directive in May directing the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to develop a rule to limit carbon dioxide from existing power plants. His directive emphasized both designing the rule in such a way to allow Virginia to join a multistate emissions trading group – i.e. the RGGI – AND doing so in such a way that a legislative vote isn’t required.  

The proposed rule was finished in October and received preliminary approval in November from the state air pollution board. Several hurdles remain, but it is on track for adoption by the end of 2018.

Bringing New Jersey back into the RGGI fold is good news and will reinforce the program’s stability and expand its footprint to cover more carbon emissions -- New Jersey will have the second-largest amount of emissions of any of the current members. However, bringing Virginia into the scheme is extremely promising for several reasons.

Good News Everybody! (on Racial Equality in Health Care)

During the last several weeks, it’s been rather depressing recognizing (yet again) that racism (still) is widespread in the United States. We’ve had yet another set of killings highlighting the differences between how police treat whites and people of color. Then we had a sitting U.S. Congressman enthusiastically endorse white supremacy on national television.
And I’m a clueless white dude– if I feel depressed about this state of affairs, imagine how bad it really must be.

When it seems like the median opinion of the national debate is somewhere between “Black Lives Don’t Matter” and “Black Lives Might Sort of Matter Sometimes When We Feel Like It as Long as Black People Keep Quiet and Don’t Hurt White People’s Fee Fees”, feeling the urge to slip into despair is understandable.

But over the last several years one indicator of racial equality has quietly been rapidly improving – a lot more African Americans are getting access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Quarterly analysis from the office for the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been keeping track of changes in the uninsured rate. APSE (and other measures have noted massive across-the-board declines in the percentages of people without health insurance since the Medicaid Expansion and Insurance Exchanges went into effect in 2014.

What’s particularly notable, however, is how well African Americans seem to be doing under the ACA, however.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, 23.2 percent working-age African Americans lacked health insurance coverage, as against 14.3 percent of Whites.  By 2016, the African American uninsured rate had fallen to 10.6 percent, while the White rate had declined to 7.0 percent.  In total then, the gap between the uninsured rates between whites and blacks fell from 8.1 percentage points to 3.6 percentage points  -- a reduction of 55.6 percent.

That’s not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot of progress.

Getting several southern states with large African American populations to expand Medicaid will likely further cut into this gap (yes, ex-Confederate States not named Arkansas or Louisiana, I’m looking at you).

The other challenge is that, despite improvements, coverage of Hispanics still lag significantly behind both Whites and Blacks.

But these are struggles going forward. For now, two and a half cheers for Obamacare's contribution to racial equality.

ACA exchange plans cost near-poor more than Medicaid

The Commonwealth Fund just released an interesting brief regarding the effects of failing to expand Medicaid on the health care costs of people between 100 and 138 percent of the poverty line.

Yes, that sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry, loyal readers (both of you) but it’s important – so wake up, dammit!

Here’s the score:  the Affordable Care Act expands Medicaid to cover everyone under 138 percent of the poverty line. The problem is that 19 states – generally dominated by Republicans – have

refused to expand their Medicaid programs. This poor public policy has created a “Medicaid gap” consisting of people who are too rich to qualify for legacy Medicaid (in Texas, for example, parents earning more than 15 percent of the poverty line – about $2,400 a year for a family of 2 – don’t qualify) but too poor to qualify for subsidies on the health insurance exchanges, which are available to households earning between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty line.

The 3.2 million people in this gap have no functional access to insurance, since there’s no way a person making, say, $10,000 a year can afford several hundred dollars a month in health insurance premiums.

People earning between 100 and 138 percent of the poverty level in non-expansion states are considerably better off though, because they qualify for both premium subsidies and cost-sharing subsidies for exchange plans. The indispensable Charles Gaba has estimated this group at roughly 1.9 million people.

But do the exchange plans stack up favorably with the generosity of Medicaid for poor people?

The good scholars over at Commonwealth Fund set out to find out. And their general answer is “no.”

Follow me below for more details.

Transitional plans and insurance exchanges II

One day after my last post, the New York Times ran an article on Geisinger Health, an insurance company requesting a large rate increase on the PA exchange. One reason why? Because the transitional plans are keeping considerable numbers of healthy people out of the exchanges. It would have been nice if the article had mentioned it before three paragraphs from the end.

Are transitional insurance plans driving losses on state exchanges?

The ACA's insurance exchanges have generally been successful in helping to reduce the ranks of uninsured in the United States, while providing reasonable quality insurance to its policyholders.

However, several challenges still remain. Most notably, a good number of insurers have had problems with breaking even on the exchange products (though some are making money). That stems from several problems, notably Marco Rubio blowing up the risk corridor reinsurance program that undermined many insurer's business plans, especially non-profit co-ops trying to break into the market. Other insurers, like United Health, have just tended to be bad at competitively designing and pricing plans.

However, the risk pools for the exchanges have also proven to be somewhat older and sicker than predicted, which has also tended to drive up prices in 2016 and will likely do so more in 2017. I haven't seen a great explanation for this other than "predicting new risk pools is hard," -- which it undoubtedly is.

However, the New England Journal of Medicine last week featured a very interesting Perspectives piece (gated unfortunately) by John Hsu that fingers grandmothered plans as the culprit.

Two-tiered justice

On the recent Stanford rape case, I think Scott Lemieux makes a valuable point that helps clarify something I've been struggling with: does asking for a stronger sentence for a privileged person who has gotten off lightly undermine the broader push to make the U.S. criminal justice system less punitive?

Lemieux argues that it doesn't. Indeed, he suggests that the two are complementary goals: If you hold privileged (read: white and rich) defendants to the same standards the you hold underprivileged ones, people with power won't be able to ignore how draconian the system is and push to change it, instead of being able to close their eyes to it because those close to them escape its clutches. Think about the differences in the ways we've treated the opioid addiction problem and cocaine (abused broadly by middle and upper-class whites) in comparison to the way we treated the meth, heroin and crack problems (used disproportionately by the poor and/or minorities).

Finally, good on the survivor for her statement to the court and defendant during the sentencing. I have much respect for her.

GOP's near-total blockade on Obama's appointments continues -- but you can help a bit

While we were all focused on the primary elections on Tuesday, something interesting happened on the Senate floor when Democrats made a conscious, polite and ultimately futile effort to get a few judges confirmed.

Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked for unanimous consent to vote on Obama's eleven district court nominees that have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee -- without objection -- and have been awaiting the action of the full Senate (see the full Senate Calendar here).

Sen. Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)  objected to the request.

Then Chuck Schumer (D- New York) asked for unanimous consent to vote on the seven that have been approved by Judiciary -- again without opposition -- and have been waiting on the floor since November 5. 

McConnell again objected.

Then Ben Cardin (D - Maryland) said, OK, could we vote on the four that have been  waiting on the floor since  October 29 -- six months ago. Those are

Paula Xinis, District of Maryland,
Brian R. Martinotti, District of New Jersey, 
Robert F. Rossiter, Jr., District of Nebraska,
Edward L. Stanton III, Western District of Tennessee

John Cornyn (R-Texas) objected.

Finally,  Cardin said, could we maybe just vote on the Xinis nomination, since she was approved by Judiciary in September, no one has raised any opposition to her and she has been awaiting floor action for seven months?

Cornyn objected again.

We all know about the near complete refusal of Senate Republicans to even meet with, let alone hold hearings for, vote on or even, gasp, approve President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. 

But we can't forget about the rest of these nominations either that are facing nearly a complete blockade by Republicans. In addition to the eleven awaiting floor action, 41 nominees are awaiting action in the Judiciary Committee.

In the 2015-2016 Congress to this point, the GOP-controlled Senate has only confirmed two circuit court appointments and fifteen district court judges.

For comparison, in the 2007-2008 Congress through April 30, the Democratic-controlled Senate had confirmed seven of George W. Bush's circuit court nominees and 38 of his district court nominees.

And in 2013-2014, by April 30, the Democratic controlled Senate had confirmed fifteen nominations to the circuit courts and 54 to the district courts.

It's reasonable that the GOP wants to scrutinize Obama's appointments a bit more (and even reject a few),  but these 11 judges have had been scrutinized. They've been waiting for confirmation between seven and 14 months.  They have all cleared a GOP-controlled Judiciary committee by voice vote. There is no opposition -- reasonable or otherwise -- to giving them their commissions. This is only about delay.

These are judges that are uncontroversial and needed to help the government perform their basic functions. Unlike Garland, they don't represent huge ideological stakes in themselves, so a bit of pressure might get the Republicans to let a few go.

Consider calling your state's Senators, especially if they are Republicans -- and especially if you're from Texas and have Cornyn as your Senator. (Don't e-mail, that's useless). Here's a list of numbers for their Washington offices. State your name, and give  a brief, polite (don't be a jerk) message asking them to hold a vote on the 11 district court nominees that await floor action.

The 11, including their numbers on the executive calendar are:

#307 Paula Xinis, District of Maryland,
#357 Brian R. Martinotti, District of New Jersey, 
#358 Robert F. Rossiter, Jr., District of Nebraska,
#359 Edward L. Stanton III, Western District of Tennessee
#362 Julien Xavier Neals, District of New Jersey
#363 Gary Richard Brown, Eastern District of New York
#364 Mark A. Young, Central District of California
#459 Marilyn Jean Horan, Western District of Pennsylvania,
#460 Susan Paradise Baxter, Western District of Pennsylvania,
#461 Mary S. McElroy, District of Rhode Island
#508 Clare E. Connors, District of Hawaii