The American Spectator

Clint| 7.16.11 @ 3:40AM

"A limited-government group says it's ratcheting up its grass-roots efforts to repeal the phaseout of incandescent light bulbs slated to begin next year.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and 20 other GOP House members, including Texan Ron Paul, have already proposed a bill to repeal the phaseout. "

The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates.

Rise Up.

Have you considered| 7.16.11 @ 9:22AM

There are so many things wrong with this vote, and it makes me so angry I could just spit.

Firstly, the damage is already done. We no longer manufacture incandescent bulbs in the country. I believe I read that GE closed the last plant last year.

Secondly, this one year repeal of the implementation and enforcement does not repeal the underlying bill. A hollow, short term victory.

They are using these hollow victories to try to persuade us that they "get it". I see them as mere propaganda.

Sheila| 7.16.11 @ 2:19PM

Excellent points, Have you considered. Unfortunately, most of TAS readers are right-liberals, neo-cons, or rah-rah-Repukes who don't really consider the underlying implications of policies or politics, including their own. The replaced American people have gotten the government they deserve. Decline and fall.

Handy| 7.16.11 @ 6:07AM

CFLs are really terrible, and are not adequate substitutes for incandescents. However, it wont be long before LEDs will be the best for most applications. The costs will come down with volume. Observe that all new cars sport them.

The more important issue is, of course, federal overreach. Specifically, the fascists at EPA.

This issue should crystallize for most people the absolute comtempt these "greenocrats" have for them. If the ban is banned, maybe we can do something about those low volume toilets next.

Bob K.| 7.18.11 @ 5:00AM

Have you seen the price of a replacement headlight for a new car? Or have you had to replace a valve stem on a tire on your new car?

By the time the costs come down the cars will be traded in and languishing on used car lots!

Siegfried X| 7.16.11 @ 7:13AM

Why didn't President Bush veto the original bill?

The answer of course is that 2007 is pre-Tea Party, part of a decade in which Republican politicians acted like Democrats, and the Republican voters were all asleep.

Handy| 7.16.11 @ 11:11AM

You are right Siegfried. Why didn't Bush 43 veto a lot of things? Like McCain-Feingold. Like a budget here and there? Like No Child Left Behind? Like the whole stupid Department of Homeland Security?

He was veto-override-proof in both houses for eight years.

Same for his old man. Americans with Disabilities Act, the tax hikes, and some others I have forgotten.

The voters weren't really asleep. They did not have any better alternatives. They became disgusted though, and vented their wrath in 2006. See what has happened since?

frank| 7.16.11 @ 12:26PM

The light bulb ban was just one part of a very large energy conservation bill. I don't think he could veto just a part of it.

This is a problem, Congress puts together this far reaching legislation knowing that an up or down vote on a single issue like banning incandescents would probably not pass. That's my opinion.

Bob| 7.16.11 @ 7:47AM

You Republicans are so hypocritical. Your President George W Dim Bulb Bush signed it into law. On the debt-ceiling front Senator Mitch Incandescence just burned out the filament of opposition giving our side the victory. Thanks from the Democratic Party.

Truth to Power| 7.16.11 @ 9:05AM

Wake up Bob. The West Wing has been canceled.

Handy| 7.16.11 @ 11:17AM

I fear you may be right, Bob. McConnell doesn't seem to understand that if Democrats like something, it is bad for our country. He's up for re-election in 2012, and he will be replaced by another Republican in Kentucky.

Maybe Obama could replace Biden with Mitch as his running mate, by way of saying thanks.

Ned the Red| 7.16.11 @ 9:59AM

The top shelf in my pantry in full of incandescent light bulbs. I suppose the next law will be an automatic inspection of your home's electrical appliances if your power use is deemed too high for your occupancy rate.

Mike 3/505| 7.16.11 @ 10:41AM

I am so cranked up, that if I could afford it, I would put a 100 KW power "sink" in my house just to get the usage up and double red dog DARE them to come and inspect my place. :-) maybe even TRIPLE dog dare them! OK "A Christmas Story" is one of my favorites.

Handy| 7.16.11 @ 11:30AM

Thermostats are already being monitored in California. There are numerous schemes to use GPS to see just where you have driven and to have you pay a tax on road usage. Moosechelle's plan to control your food intake is being taken seriously. Don't forget the low flow toilet mandate. Cut the volume by a third, then flush twice. Remember a few years ago when everyone was supposed to have white roofs?

The meddling is never ending. It's maddening, and the "Greenocrats" could not care less.

Occam's Tool| 7.16.11 @ 4:20PM

These scumbags are mad. My house is off the grid on water; I have geothermal heating, and am considering adding solar. I guess I have en extra year now to stock up on incandescents.

I hate Liberals.

frank| 7.16.11 @ 8:50PM

You have more than an extra year because the legislation phased in the new standards over 4 years, with the 100 watt bulb going out Jan 1 2012.

In the original legislation, on Jan 1 2013, the max wattage of 53 would kick in for lights in the 1050-1489 lumen range.

Jan 1 2014: 750-1049 lumens of light can be generated in a bulb of maximum 43 watts. And in 2015, the humble 40 watt bulb gets thrown under the bus. bulbs giving off 310-749 lumens can have a max. wattage of 29.

I read the bill for a project I am working on. It is very convoluted and frustrating to read. It does not "ban" anything directly, it sets forth new "efficiency standards," thus indirectly banning stuff. I think the bulb manufacturers were at work here, getting something they could live with vs. something written by some Congressional staffer greenie.

peterdub| 7.17.11 @ 4:59PM

Yes, it is a ban:
Yes, it is a ban on all incandescents - including the new types.

Frank you are right in theory,
but not in practice - and not really in theory either, since you forgot to read the Second Phase
specifications (kicking in before 2020)

If by climbing Mount Everest I am allowed to smoke a cigarette, I still don't get no satisfaction.

Not only is it therefore a ban on simple incandescents starting 2012 (28% energy reduction reqd)
but also on ALL known incandescents by 2020 (67% energy reduction reqd)
- including then the announced Philips etc "New Incandescents", which the politicians waving them around like to keep VERY quiet about.

The Energy Information Administration at Dept of Energy (see their press releases)
also confirm that any lamp on the market in 2020
"will have to be as efficient as CFLs" by such time.

Unfortunately
(or fortunately, depending on view!)
incandescents can't technically be made to such energy usage, and even if they could, the profit -seeking manufacturers behind the ban would be unlikely to pursue it given the high development cost such bulbs would have, also losing their sale price advantage relative to more profitable CFLs/LEDs.

More on the industrial politics behind the ban,
with references, and copies of official communications,
http://ceolas.net/#li1ax
.

frank| 7.17.11 @ 11:24PM

Jeez, wrong in BOTH theory AND practice... I guess it doesn't get any worse than that.

What I was trying to get across is, they went about the ban in kind of a sneaky way, in the legislation, I thought, which was by defining what was acceptable.

Everyone is now up to speed on this now, I hope. I'll look at that link you gave, thanks.

Occam's Tool| 7.17.11 @ 11:02PM

Frank,

Thank you.

Have you considered| 7.16.11 @ 11:47AM

Ned, I believe it is already underway, on two separte fronts.

1) This is what Smart Grid and Smart Meters are designed to do. Monitor your usage, and cut you off if you exceed some artificially mandated limit.

2) Energy Star efficiency ratings have been in place for many years, as a guide to help consumers make decisions in their major appliance purchase. But now, the EPA is well underway with mandating efficiency compliance at the manufacturing level, which limits what will be available on the shelf for purchase, just like light bulbs.

The Republicans are simply not interested in tackling these issues and mandates in any serious way. This delay of implementing the light bulb ban supports this contention IMHO.

Siegfried X| 7.16.11 @ 4:18PM

"The Republicans are simply not interested in tackling these issues and mandates in any serious way"

Correct. During the Bush Administration the Republican leadership focused all its energy on things it really cared about like passing illegal alien amnesty and passing Ted Kennedy's bills.

Warrior| 7.17.11 @ 10:20AM

Please don't focus on what they couldn't pass. Please remember Medicare prescription, no child left behind, mosquito nets for Africa, TARP, AIG bailout, lack of any energy policy that would allow even the slightest expansion of drilling, exercises in nation building (pre-emptive wars if like the term better), a fiscal policy built on exploding the debt, etc. Bush was and his Republican cronies were left of LBJ and clearly full steam ahead on the road to Socialism. The Republican party of today is to the left of the democrats of the 60's.

Occam's Tool| 7.17.11 @ 10:59PM

Yeah. I'm not sure JFK could have gotten nominated by the GOP in 2012---he was too far to the Right--Bobby worked for McCarthy, remember.

Sue| 7.16.11 @ 10:09AM

It is a symbol of what's wrong, but it is not minor. Note the EPA as the enforcement police. Why do the politicians keep changing things? To benefit their cronies who put them in office. Incandescents ban = capital cronyism and nothing more.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.16.11 @ 10:25AM

The politicians dance on the head of a pin while the EPA lives on. There is where the problem lies. Eliminate the problem.

axbucxdu| 7.16.11 @ 11:07AM

Indeed, but who first proposed and then signed the agency into existence?

Orwell said it best: "Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.16.11 @ 12:20PM

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Occam's Tool| 7.16.11 @ 4:22PM

Yup, Bill. Awesome then, awesome now.

Oldefarte| 7.16.11 @ 10:36AM

Wow, golly, gadzooks, shazam, we're on the brink of financial/economic ruin from possible default by the US Government, are involved in several needless/nation building military efforts within the middle east, are regulating the private businesses in this country to extinction, etc; and we're congressionally involved in a ludicrous waste-of-time effort over light bulbs? This country is going to Hell-in-a-hand basket very very quickly!!!!!!!!!!1

Mike 3/505| 7.16.11 @ 10:43AM

The light bulb issue is part and parcel of the process. The reason we are in such debt, is that government is involved in way too many things...such as light bulbs. Aside from direct cost to the consumer, how much do you think is is gong to cost to enforce these standards?

Regards,

Mike

Handy| 7.16.11 @ 11:36AM

Right you are Mike. Save a billion here, but spend $5 billion on monitoring, enforcement and ultimately, pensions for all those monitors and enforcers.

Oldefarte| 7.16.11 @ 1:11PM

It was recently reported that this nation/government spends $39 billion on Medicaid nursing home care for the indigent elderly.....$39 ''''BILLION''''!!!!!!!!!!

Oldefarte| 7.16.11 @ 1:14PM

PS: I seem to recall also that the government
[ie you, me and all other taxpayers] spends $400 billion on Medicaid alone also!!!!!

Mimi| 7.16.11 @ 8:13PM

More and more it looks like we are going to have to ride out this "STORM" called Obama...That's the BIG elephant in the room....What did the GOP minority leader , Mitch McConnell say this week? ...... " As long as this president is in the Whitehouse...we are unable to make any deal " They are going to give up trying, and just wait it out???? What's next an Obama slip-up and sure impeachment when the country is on its last leg?
SAD ! The people out here are hurting...money and chances to get some are slowly disappearing...A cloud is surrounding and about to envelope us....SOON Hopelessness will take over.

Tolerance| 7.17.11 @ 12:53AM

Do you people think we could stop this childish bickering over "No, you're to blame!" "No, you are !" "No, it's you!" "No, it's you!" Blah, blah, blah.... Why do you think your elected politicians cannot get anything done? Because they were elected by you, you Jackasses! Why should they be any different than you are?

Southern_Comment| 7.17.11 @ 6:57AM

Tolerance - calm down and stop calling people stupid because they are getting behind an issue. There are so many with the dems. This issue is actually important - shows the bulb mfg (GE) using the government to stop mfg of low profit bulbs and forcing people to buy bulbs that contain poison simply so companies like GE can make more of a profit. Meanwhile, as the dems help them they are telling the rest of us how EVIL big corps are - it's a shining, glowing if you will, example of the bs that is the liberal progressives.

Kingofthenet| 7.17.11 @ 7:59PM

This has got to be the STUPIDEST idea EVER by Anti-Science knuckle Dragging GOP. Why you would fight to keep OBSOLETE, massively wasteful light bulbs is beyond me. 'Personal Freedom my arse, what's next? Introducing Legislation to re-allow Horse and Buggy's on the nations highways, Doing away with mandatory seat belts? What we need is a carbon tax NOW!

axbucxdu| 7.17.11 @ 8:37PM

Typical comment by one of those that think they think, but really only BELIEVE, despite all the historical facts to the contrary, they alone know better than the laws of supply and demand.

What the hell is wrong with letting technical innovation obsolesce those incandescent bulbs without help from the prog's favorite tool: i.e., legislation?

My, that legal approach is...anti-scientific. But then that's preciseley what one one gets from the prog: dogmatism, not science.

Kingofthenet| 7.17.11 @ 8:46PM

Because that isn't FREEDOM it's ANARCHY. There WAS once a time you could buy all sorts of 'Snake Oil' that very literally might have poison in it or make outrageous claims it couldn't back up. People aren't 'experts' in everything, I can't PERSONALLY test my water and meat for contamination, I can't do scientific studies on medicines to make sure they are effective and safe. I NEED the Govt. to do this, there is NO downside to this, don't worry about some 'mercury' from your 'butter fingers' breaking all the bulbs, you get more from that dirty coal fed generating station, that you are in love with.

Nick| 7.18.11 @ 12:01AM

Kook of the Net,

Why don't you do an experiment to see if blood-letting really works?

axbucxdu| 7.18.11 @ 12:26AM

I see: Technical innovation is not FREEDOM, it's ANARCHY! Lions, and tigers, and bears, Oh my! You heard it here first, folks. Behold, the moralizing prog mind, a gift that never stops giving.

What's next for your philosophy? Dictating the circuit dimensions for the next microprocessor? With your anti-scientific dogma, that's exactly where you'd have us.

If you're sincerely interested in advancing science, then make some real progress, prog. Have your ideas pay for themselves, instead of them standing at my door every April with cap in hand.

Occam's Tool| 7.17.11 @ 11:01PM

King---incandescents provide better light and are environmentally safer to dispose of. Their environmental record goes back over a century.

Mercury is a nasty killer---anticholinergic syndrome can literally drive you mad, aka "Mad Hatter syndrome." This is something I'm a bit of an expert on.

Kingofthenet| 7.18.11 @ 1:43AM

Mercury is hazardous, no doubt about that. But the extremely small amount in a broken bulb is nothing to worry about. I would agree that the 'cheap' CFL's are TERRIBLE, look into 5 kelvin 'Full Spectrum' ones, the light is FANTASTIC. Your point about 'environmental concern' is almost laughable, IF the entire Country were to completely replace regular bulbs with CFL's , it would be the equivalent of not needing 100's of NEW Power plants, that is alot less emissions which also include heavy metals, NOT getting into the environment.(From plants that don't need to be built or ones that can be decommissioned) not to mention the MONEY every American saves.
Let's do the savings math, let's say every American household uses about 6kw a day in total lighting, now CFL's use a quarter of that for a total of 1.5kw a day, a kilowatt cost about 10 cents, so by switching you are saving about 45 cents a day,or $15 a month, a NICE savings!

Bob K.| 7.18.11 @ 5:19AM

Until the next great technological achievement comes along! And then we will all switch to that. And so on, and so on! It has been so ordered, or should be, by you techy progressives.

You fools confuse technical progress with social and political progress and throw individual freedoms out of the door doing so.

axbucxdu| 7.18.11 @ 5:42PM

Will wonders never cease? A prog that demonstrates some skills in arithmetic. It was easy to perform that calculation, and it was done without any help at all from the pols.

You're criticizing what you believe are the troglodytes opposed to this bill, so you leave me no alternative but to presume that you believe other lighting consumers are incapable of performing the same analysis.

Therein lies the prog flaw: an arrogance that, curiously, never hesitates to use the force of legislation in order to maintain their perceived superiority.

On the other hand, superior technology doesn't need the guvmint's help to chase its inferiors from the marketplace. I suppose that's why they call it superior. BTW, in the residential electric utility market a kw has neither sale price nor consumer cost, but there are accounting consequences when a kwh is produced /consumed.