Cap and Trade One Year Anniversary and the World Has Not Come To An End

Oh yes -- we already have cap and trade! It is called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and it is a year old this month. 10 states in the northeast banded together to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in the region and installed their own version of a cap and trade program. Every power plant in the area needs to buy allowances to emit greenhouse gasses. Allowances are sold on auction quarterly. At some point, the number of allowances on the market get scaled back -- increasing the price of the allowance and sending a signal to the plant that it may be cheaper to reduce their emissions.

Special Election Tomorrow! UPDATE with CapeGazette Endorsement

The Special Election for the House seat in the 37th is tomorrow, 12 September. Rob Robinson is the Democratic candidate, running against local lobbyist Ruth Briggs-King. If you are in the 37th -- make sure you go vote on Saturday. If you are not in the 37th and want to help out, volunteers are needed to work the polls and get out the vote all day! (UPDATE)

Newark Film Festival

Not a paid announcement, but definitely want to point everyone to one of my favorite Delaware events -- the Newark Film Festival. It started yesterday and runs though the 17th with films running at the Cinema Center 3 in Newark. You can see all of the showtimes here.

The Trouble with Triggers

Tom Carper (and other Senators) have been hyping a "fall-back trigger" for implementing a Public Option for health insurance reform. The Public Option has strong progressive support and is one of the last big questions to settle in this process.

Health Insurance Reform — Where We Are Now

One of the things that is true about the discussion about this reform effort is that too few people really understand what is currently in the bills drafted. Part of that is because we get distracted by the misinformation about death panels, government taking over medical care and the other litany of lies that fired up the teabaggers over the last month.