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The
National Review...
The
Bulb Is Saved
By Henry Payne
December 16, 2011
The
lights are still on.
In
a shrewd political move at the end
of the Washington fiscal year, House Republicans inserted language in
the
annual, omnibus Appropriations Bill funding the U.S. government that
blocks
federal energy standards banning the traditional, incandescent light
bulb.
Thomas Edison can stop spinning in his grave and the American people
can cheer
a victory for consumer choice.
The
bulb ban was a dark symbol of the
Obama administration’s zealous appeasement of the green god of global
warming.
It was also a window into Washington crony capitalism as General
Electric
lobbied for a bulb ban — initially also supported by key Republican
lawmakers —
in order to force consumers to buy more expensive compact fluorescents
(CFLs).
Like CAFE laws that force auto mpg improvements, the restrictive energy
rules
were a sneaky backdoor regulation mandating the amount of energy a bulb
used —
effectively eliminating the cheap incandescents chosen by 85 percent of
American consumers.
“It’s
a milestone for personal
freedom,” says Freedom Action’s Myron Ebell who fought hard in the
trenches to
overturn the ban. “This is a significant reversal of Nanny State
regulations.
Maybe this is a turning of the tide.”
The
bulb’s rescue however, will not
restore the hundreds of U.S. jobs lost over the last few years as GE
and other
bulb manufacturers shuttered factories and shipped the jobs to China
where more
expensive CFL bulbs can be manufactured with cheap labor.
“We
heard the message loud and clear
from Americans who don’t want government standards determining how they
light
their homes,” said Michigan congressman Fred Upton, who helped lead the
charge.
The Energy Committee chair’s leadership did not come without eating
some crow
as he was an original sponsor of the ban when George W. Bush —
apparently
suffering from Guilty Oil Man Syndrome — pushed the legislation in
2007.
Despite repeated setbacks — with House efforts met by Harry Reid’s
Senate
stonewall — Republicans maintained pressure as the public became more
aware of
the impending January 1, 2012 ban.
Democrats
and their corporate cronies
did not go down silently. “The light bulb language had emerged as a
sticking
point in negotiations this week,” observed Bloomberg News, “and its
inclusion
in the final bill is a blow to Democratic efforts to remove it.”
“I
strongly oppose that language,”
huffed Senate Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman, (D., N.M.), who was joined
by an
Iron Triangle of Democrats, Greens, and industry groups. “Eliminating
funding
for light bulb efficiency standards is especially poor policy as it
would leave
the policy in place but make it impossible to enforce,” raged the
coalition.
Upton
was joined by Reps. Joe Barton
(R., Texas), and Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), in saving the bulb —
with a
significant assist from Speaker John Boehner and House Appropriations
Committee
Chair Hal Rogers of Kentucky, who know a winning political issue when
they see
one. Along with the 120,000-job Keystone pipeline, the bulb issue helps
to
illuminate the fact that the Green religion is not only an imposition
on
personal freedom, but a job killer.
This
time, Big Government lost. Merry
Christmas.
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