Robert Bryce of the Manhattan Institute has a great post on National Review Online wherein he examines the bipartisan nanny state crusade against the light bulb.
Please correct me if this is wrong, but didn't the Republicans promise they would stop this insanity after the first wave of bans, the 100 watt bulb, hit the final push through congress?
How did this happen? Wasn't it John Boehner who said he would not allow this to happen? incondencent
How Big Gov. Saved Us From the Dreaded Light Bulb
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 — one of the most pork-filled bits of federal energy legislation ever passed by Congress — continues to haunt us.
That legislation, signed into law by George W. Bush, forced more ethanol into our motor-fuel supply. And come New Year’s Day, it will effectively eliminate a type of light bulb — the standard 40- and 60-watt incandescent — that consumers have been using since the days of Thomas Edison. (The January 1 ban on 40- and 60-watt bulbs follows the phase-out of the 75- and 100-watt incandescent bulbs that took effect at the beginning of this year.)
To be clear, this is not the end of the republic. But it is yet another maddening example of governmental intervention in the energy marketplace that simply isn't needed.
The motivation behind the ban on standard incandescent bulbs is greater efficiency. The EPA claims that the light-bulb ban will cut consumers’ electricity bills by about $6 billion by 2015. It also claims that the move will reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants and cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
All that may be true. But $6 billion in savings is a vanishingly small sliver of the U.S. GDP of about $16 trillion. Furthermore, the United States already leads the world in cutting its greenhouse-gas emissions, thanks to the fact that natural gas is displacing significant amounts of coal in the electric-generation sector.
Back in 2007, one of the main backers of the push to ban incandescent bulbs, Representative Jane Harman, a Democrat from California, who has since left Congress, offered a justification for the move. In an article in the Huffington Post, she claimed that banning the bulbs could "help transform America into an energy-efficient and energy-independent nation." Over the past few years, I’ve heard plenty of cockamamie notions — from the corn-ethanol scam to cellulosic biofuel — about how to reach the mythical Valhalla of energy independence. By adding light bulbs to the list, Harman proved she isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
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