The Incandescent Light Bulb: Could The GOP Resurrect It?

The other day I was in Target picking up the usual necessities, such as toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, etc.  My list also included light bulbs ... a touchy issue with me.  I mourned as I defiantly picked up boxes of the good ol' trusty, Thomas Edison-birthed incandescent light bulbs, refusing to buy those damned, snake oil CFL swirly bulbs.  I angrily recalled stories of how axing the tried and true bulbs also wound up axing jobs in the United States ... like other "green" industries.  In September, Ed Lasky at American Thinker published the news of the bulb's impending demise:

Light bulbs sprang from the brilliant mind of Thomas Edison -- a true American hero, right up there with Benjamin Franklin. But his legacy is coming to an end. General Electric, the company that he founded, is closing America's last factory for making incandescent light bulbs, victim of  liberal environmental politics and zealotry.

Sadly, not only will the workers be losing their jobs -- devastating another small  town (Winchester, Virginia) -- but the boon created by their replacements, compact fluorescents (CFLs), will not be realized in America, where they were first dreamed up and created, but will instead be enriching China.

The Washington Post reports about the close of an era in an elegiac column by Peter Whoriskey:

"Now what're we going to do?" said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful. [snip]

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs. [snip]

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

"Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon," said Pat Doyle, 54, who has worked at the plant for 26 years. But "we've been sold out. First sold out by the government. Then sold out by GE."

Let us note that General Electric has been in Barack Obama's corner from day one and has positioned itself to be a prime beneficiary of the massive green scheming of America that Obama and his allies in Congress are perpetrating across our nation (via taxpayer money, subsidies, loans, mandates, rules, and regulations -- an EPA in overdrive). And Obama deserves a chunk of the blame:

General Electric jumped on board the CFL bandwagon -- and threw its workers off it without a ticket to get back on. American unions and government rules just did not make it feasible (i.e., profitable) to manufacture CFLs in America. Now most are made by Chinese companies, to which we are sending our green dollars in more ways than one. 

I have held on to the above piece and was getting ready to finally post it (yeah -- lots of old material I wasn't able to get to due to ... work!); but, today I just happened upon a glimmer of hope.  Apparently, in line with the GOP trying to repeal ObamaCare, it appears that the GOP is also going after the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act that mandated the end of the incandescent bulb.  The Daily Caller reports on the GOPs proposed BULB Act -- The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act (emphasis added):

Republicans Fight to Save the Incandescent Light Bulb

In the early days of the 112th Congress, Reps. Joe Barton of Texas, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Michael Burgess of Texas, all Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee, will once again step in to attempt to save the incandescent light bulb. Today or tomorrow, the three representatives will reintroduce a bill to repeal legislation that would replace the incandescent light bulb with a more energy efficient alternative.

The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, better known as the BULB Act, calls for the repeal of the section of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that mandated ending the use of incandescent light bulbs in favor of a more energy efficient alternative. The act was first introduced in September of the 111th Congress, prompted by an article in the Washington Post reporting that the last GE incandescent light bulb factory in the United States would close that month ...

Now the Greens have labeled this action as "regressive", arguing that people have already made the switch to the CFL bulbs as evidenced by the 50% decrease in incandescent bulb sales in the last five years.  Well, sure, when you've been bombarded with all kinds of advertising, as well as municipalities handing out free CFLs.  The propaganda campaign has been great.   But, as consumers gradually discover the problems with CFL, they are returning to the "old school" bulbs.  From The Tennessean:

The aim of the ban is to force Americans to buy compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, because they are supposed to be a "green" solution to lighting.


Their much higher initial costs also were supposed to be offset by the fact they lasted years longer than the old incandescents. As consumers have learned, however, their longevity under certain conditions and in certain lighting fixtures was greatly oversold.


For instance, many aren't designed for a timer or a dimmer or to be turned on and off frequently. If they aren't allowed to warm up over the course of 15 minutes, their lifespan may be shortened to the point that they are no more effective than the old incandescent.


Moreover, the CFLs contain mercury — enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, according to information from those leading the repeal. If the bulbs are not disposed of properly, they can present a health hazard. They also sometimes give off an odor or can emit smoke.


Consumers obviously should not just pitch them into the garbage so that they eventually end up in a landfill. If a CFL is dropped and breaks in the home, the cleanup process can be involved. It includes the disposal of any clothing or bedding that comes in contact with the breakage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.


"These are the kinds of regulations that make the American people roll their eyes. It is typical of a 'big Washington' solution to a non-existent problem. In this case it manifests itself as an overreach into every American home, one that ships good jobs overseas and infuriates the American consumer," Blackburn, who represents this community in Washington, said in a press release.

Here's wishing the 112th Congress success in its repeals -- its peeling back of the insanity wrought upon this nation by the 111th!