In our household, we believe efficiency improvements in just about all areas of life are a good thing. Of course, energy use is included.

We are also very satisfied customers of our supplier of electricity, Intermountain Rural Electric Association.

In a Business section story of Jan. 28, "For Xcel, it pays to save energy," the Rocky Mountain News reported that "IREA doesn't believe in rewarding customers for energy efficiency." That statement was to draw a bright line between IREA and Xcel Energy. Xcel was being lauded in the report for payments it makes to its customers partially refunding their expenditures for installing insulation or buying more efficient appliances.

IREA was taken to the woodshed, not only for failing to have a similar program but for actively opposing laws and regulations requiring them. That position is anathema to "energy advocates" who, reported the Rocky, "want IREA to follow Xcel's footsteps."

In addition to our household belief that efficiency improvements are generally a good thing, we believe free markets, imperfect as they may be, do a better job of allocating resources than do government regulations. That's the really bright line lying between IREA and Xcel.

As IREA general manager Stan Lewandowski said in the same Rocky article, there's no free lunch. Sure, a $300 Xcel rebate to a customer for blowing insulation in her attic is "free lunch" to her, but it doesn't come out of Xcel's pockets; that cost was in Xcel's rate base so all its customers paid for it.

In fact, Xcel is laughing all the way to the bank over this chicanery. Its accountants in Minneapolis have put their sharp pencils to what "energy advocates" (read, green activists) want and have almost certainly figured out how to increase return on investment with schemes like the rebates.

This bunch is playing footsie with the left, acting sweet and green while quietly passing the costs on to ratepayers who are paying too little attention, meanwhile telling us all (with credulous accomplices like Gargi Chakrabarty, the Rocky reporter who wrote that editorial masquerading as news) what a wonderful public servant Xcel is.

Unlike Xcel, which makes its deals with the green captives passing as utility regulators in Colorado, IREA has to be responsive to ratepayers who are also its owners.

They know they'll be paying the $300 rebate for someone else's insulation, and they'd rather that each electric customer choose for herself or himself whether the insulation is or isn't a good deal.

If it is, then by all means buy it, but don't have your hand out to the neighbors for a partial refund.

Retired businessman John Dendahl lives in Littleton and is president of the newly incorporated think tank, The Rocky Mountain Foundation.