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If you're going to raise irrelevant political issues like lightbulbs, at least place the blame where it belongs, which is not on "Congress" generally, but on a
by Bud 15y ago
If you're going to raise irrelevant political issues like lightbulbs, at least place the blame where it belongs, which is not on "Congress" generally, but on a few Texas House Republicans (Jo Barton in particular), who are idiotically attacking the idea of having standards to increase energy efficiency.
Placing the blame on Congress generally spreads the incorrect belief that all legislators and both parties are responsible for criminally stupid stuff like this. They're not.
- steins 15y agoThey are all responsible for placing the idiotic ban on incandescent bulbs to begin with. The federal govt has no business legislating the everyday minutiae of our lives.
- Bud 15y agoYou are sadly misinformed; apparently taken in by Tea Party propaganda. There is no "ban" on incandescent bulbs, and never was. The proposed standards, which were bipartisan, were intended to increase the efficiency of incandescents over time.
- nitrogen 15y agoIf there is a physical limitation to the amount of light that can be produced by a light bulb that uses black body emission to generate light, then a standard of efficiency that exceeds that physical limitation is an effective ban on generating light via black body emission. That's the way Congress loves to roll: they won't explicitly ban something they don't like (so they can save face with their constituents), but they'll do everything they can to make it untenable.
- andrewflnr 15y agoIn California there is. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/24/california-incandescent-l_n_813093.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/24/california-incandes...
- dantheman 15y agoWhy is having standards on lightbulbs a federal issue? Shouldn't it be best handled by the states? Perhaps the EPA or Department of Energy could write a report or make recommendations; but at the end of the day it should reside in the state.
- mbreese 15y agoSo you think that each state should have a light bulb plant? If not, then we are talking interstate commerce, which means federal standards.
- dantheman 15y agoNope, but the light bulb plant can choose which states it wants to sell in and manufacture bulbs that meet those requirements. In fact they may just make one that meets the strictest requirements, and people other states may choose to purchase STATE X efficient bulbs.
- chc 15y agoIt is not actually the federal government's job to regulate every detail of every transaction that crosses state lines. The specifics of the lightbulbs are only tangentially related to the commercial transaction and even less connected to the fact that it crosses state lines, so I would hardly consider Congress negligent if it declined to make rules for cross-state light bulb shipping.
- JamieEi 15y agoYou want 50 sets of slightly different standards for light bulbs? Surely that is a recipe for chaos and inefficiency.
- dantheman 15y agoWe do it for cars?
- tedunangst 15y ago