“Looking back with hindsight, the business opportunities were on the generation side, and the utility was going out for bid with all these big renewable-energy projects. But in retrospect, it seems clear, we weren’t as focused on these fire risks as we should have been.”

– Doug McLeod, former Maui county energy commissioner (quoted in WSJ, below)

Opportunity cost is a central concept in economics. Economics is about the unseen versus the seen. Resources spent in one direction are not spent in another. The same goes for corporations as politically correct, economically incorrect priorities crowd out good. Climate change policy is a premier example.

Government-forced substitution of dilute, intermittent energies for reliable incumbents has not only cost taxpayers and ratepayers. It has also cost the environment–dearly. The recent saga of Hawaiian Electric’s preoccupation with “the energy transition” at the expense of grid safety and reliability is the latest example of this.…

Ed. Note: Jim Clarkson is a soft-spoken everyday man who has experienced first-hand the ins-and-outs of crony public-utility regulation, first as the energy manager at a large industrial user and more recently as an energy procurement/installation consultant. Clarkson, a classical liberal, has also been instrumental in the development of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) as a free-market education and advocacy organization.

“A Federal employee asked what I did and why I was on the Board…. I airily waved at the group and said: ‘I’m the only one here making an honest living.’ That didn’t go over very well. I shouldn’t have said it, but after over 50 years of observing state utility regulation, it still upsets me to see smart young people devoted to limiting freedom and prosperity when they could be doing something useful.”

“The ‘wheels of justice turn slowly,’ but they indeed turned, even within the District of Columbia’s ‘uni-party.’ As for holding on to this victory, it is far from a slam-dunk for preserving consumer choice and free markets. I expect the struggle to escalate in Biden’s all-of-government war against natural gas and other fossil fuels.”

Beleaguered energy consumers were just handed a far-reaching victory by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit). The ruling vacated a Final Rule from the U.S, Department of Energy (DOE) that would have banned the manufacture and sale of non-condensing boilers for use in commercial applications. DOE’s rule was challenged several years ago by natural gas interests–and later joined with a separate but similar case brought by the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI).…

Editor Note: On this day in 2017, President Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. Formal withdrawal began on November 4, 2019, with notification to the United Nations. Effective one year later, the withdrawal was reversed by the Biden Administration on his first day in office, January 20, 2021. Six years later, the logic of withdrawal remains–and more so.

“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.” – President Trump, below

THE PRESIDENT: One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for President …. I…