“When relevant factors are properly considered, the most cost-effective appliances are usually the cheapest to buy and maintain. Super-efficient appliances are super expensive to buy and maintain.”
On June 9, 2025, Andrew Campbell, Executive Director of the Energy Institute at the Hass School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, published the above-named article. It is subtitled and summarized by the following: “If the DOE undoes minimum energy efficiency standards, which are decades old, consumer costs will likely rise.”
This statement is simultaneously vague, inaccurate and misleading. Where should I start debunking this fallacious statement? I suppose I should start with who I am to challenge Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas. I’m an engineer and energy policy analyst with decades of experience opposing DOE’s minimum energy efficiency standards. This can be easily validated by:
“The Competitive Enterprise Institute is leading a coalition of free market advocates attempting to organize support to stop the IRA’s obscene and consumer abusive funding. In response, the Biden (mis)Administration is attempting to shovel IRA funding out the door as fast as it can to contractually shield it.”
Early this month, Lucas Davis, a Professor in Business and Technology at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, published an article titled: How Do We Pump Up the Impact of Heat Pump Subsidies? In April, Professor Davis published a precursor article titled: Why Are Heat Pump Sales Decreasing?
The upshot is that despite Federal rebates of up to $8,000 per the “Inflation Reduction Act,” real-world economics of electric heat pumps are dismal. Several commenters to the second article aptly summarized why from a consumer perspective.…
“Ameren Corporation claims, putting in SO2 scrubbers would cost more than securitizing Rush Island’s ‘stranded assets.’ However, Ameren is avoiding what it would fully cost to replace Rush Island’s critically needed and reliable capacity.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote in Volume 4 of Notes on Virginia: “With money we will get men, said Cæsar, and with men we will get money.”[1]
Such threats to keeping our constitutional republic are increasingly evident with the weaponization of many Federal Agencies (e.g., the Department of Justice, FBI, etc.), as well as numerous Biden Executive Orders for federal agencies to fight the “existential” threat of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
These threats, coupled with the plague of “woke” political agendas promoting “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) and/or “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), are forcibly reaching leading “investment management” firms (e.g.,…