Posted on 06/12/2011 9:31:27 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist
As a subscriber to Newsmax I receive weekly emails from them on various topics. I found the following item concerning lightbulbs interesting enough to share:
Light Bulb Repeal Bill Stalls in Congress
"A bill to repeal the banning of ordinary incandescent light bulbs is bottled up in a congressional committee despite Americans’ apparent distaste for the more expensive bulbs that would replace them.
The 100-watt incandescent bulb is scheduled to be outlawed in January 2012, the 75-watt bulb will disappear in January 2013, and the 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs in January 2014.
The bill banning the bulbs — which use more energy than newer bulbs — was introduced in 2007 by then Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, and Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, and signed by President George W. Bush in December 2007.
Upton is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and while lobbying Republicans for the post he vowed to repeal the section of the 2007 bill that bans incandescent bulbs.
“We have heard the grass roots loud and clear, and will have a hearing early next Congress,” he said in December. “The last thing we wanted to do was infringe upon personal liberties, and this has been a good lesson that Congress does not always know best.”
In January, Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton proposed the Better Use of Light Bulb (BULB) act, which would cancel the phase-out of incandescent bulbs. The bill has 62 co-sponsors, 61 of them Republicans, and a companion bill in the Senate has 28 co-sponsors.
But Upton’s committee has not yet held a hearing on the bill, and “House Republican leadership has evinced no interest in bringing the Barton bill to the floor,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes in RealClearMarkets. “Calls to repeal the incandescent light bulb ban are coming from consumers, who prefer incandescent lamps." “Chairman Upton,” she adds, “how about voting Mr. Barton’s bill out of committee and sending it to the House floor?”
Once incandescent bulbs vanish, Americans will have to purchase either compact fluorescent bulbs — known as CFLs — halogens, or light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
All three cost significantly more than incandescent bulbs, although they last longer. Many people don’t like the light cast by CFLs — the cheapest of the three — and they must be disposed of at special recycling centers because they contain mercury. They also pose a danger if broken in the home.
Another factor to consider: Incandescent bulbs are made in the United States, while almost all CFLs are made in China, according to Furchtgott-Roth. She concludes: “Consumers should be free, in my opinion, to choose the light bulbs they prefer. If Congress believes that consumers should conserve energy, it can impose a tax on the model bulbs whose use it would discourage or on electricity in general.""
Upton is blocking the bill ? Surprise!
W also had his brain lapses.
We have no leadership in the House NONE! They could make a law for us use to Kerosene lanterns and it would pass!
Stock up people. We have a useless congress.
Ban Congress. It’s a waste of energy.
Way ahead of you, pardner...
If they cannot do this, they cannot do ANYTHING.
If they WILL not do this, they either didn’t understand or are purposefully ignoring the message of the Tea Party and the 2010 election.
Stop spending! Stop regulating! Get the hell out of our lives!
But when one informs himself of the weirdo and perhaps dangerous lighting situation we're going to be in, it's very illuminating indeed.
Let's remember we're activists, not keyboard commandos. Please freep your representative on this ASAP.
IMO, the spineless, tone-deaf Republicans in the House, even the new freshman hot-shots, are going to disappoint us big-time in issues large and small.
Watt is the real reason for the inertia on the light bulb repeal bill, hmmmmm?
Leni
This is all academic anyways since nobody is going to be able to afford electricity by the time the law kicks in.
Too bad Bachmann’s focused on her presidential run instead of things like this and the defunding of Obamacare that she could actually be doing real good with. (She was out front and right on both these causes.)
apparently, they think not repealing it before the election will help them and then they will do it. Write and tell them it’s a strategy with which you disagree.
Go Joe Barton !
Precisely! If they cannot do this simple thing, that everyone is for, then asking them to cut spending and reduce the size of government is futile.
I hate to say the situation is hopeless; but, it is much harder to change the way government works than anyone imagined.
Thanks for posting this and I urge everyone to call this moron Upton.
Let me tell you, I did call his office a while ago on this and the person I spoke to knew nothing about it.
So, this is why I call him a moron.
So, let’s start ringing the phones, because we don’t want to lose our good lightbulbs.
Not smart. At all.
Too little, too late....
Most of the U.S. light bulb production plants have now been shut down thanks to this law, at the loss of 50,000+ mostly union jobs, and the environmentally unsound CFL production moved to China and Mexico.
I can’t wait to hear the Democrats screaming for BILLIONS in the next two decades to clean the Mercury from this boondoggle out of America’s landfills.
“Another factor to consider: Incandescent bulbs are made in the United States. . .”
Too late. GE closed down the last US light bulb manufacturing plant at the end of 2010. Thomas Edison must be turning over in his grave.
The new energy efficient CFL bulbs that replace the incandescent bulbs were also invented in the US but production is all overseas. So much for Obama’s promise of millions of green energy jobs in America.
The issue here is not the intelligence of Congress. It is what corporations or organizations are pushing Congress behind the scenes to keep the ban on incandescent bulbs? Congress today responds to the money, not to the wishes of the American people.
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