Let There Be Light(s)

Leave it to the state of Texas to tell the fascists in Washington to take their ban on the incandescent light bulb and stick it you-know-where.

State lawmakers have passed a bill that allows Texans to skirt federal efforts to promote more efficient light bulbs, which ultimately pushes the swirled, compact fluorescent bulbs over the 100-watt incandescent bulbs many grew up with.

The measure, sent to Gov. Rick Perry for consideration, lets any incandescent light bulb manufactured in Texas – and sold in that state – avoid the authority of the federal government or the repeal of the 2007 energy independence act that starts phasing out some incandescent light bulbs next year.

“Let there be light,” state Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana, wrote on Facebook after the bill passed. “It will allow the continued manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs in Texas, even after the federal ban goes into effect. … It’s a good day for Texas.”

It’s none of the federal government’s business to tell Americans what kind of light bulbs they must purchase. Nowhere in the Constitution does the government have that sort of authority. Yet we’ve ceded that authority to them over the years. It’s always for the good of something. Children. The Environment. Whatever.

This is a bipartisan trainwreck. Co-authored by Democrat Jane Harman of California and Republican Fred Upton of Michigan and signed by President Bush, the bill essentially bans the manufacture and sale of the traditional incandescent light bulb, killing numerous American jobs in the process.

Now Upton has seen the light, so to speak. He is supporting a pending bill in the House of Representatives repealing his original bill:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., has finally agreed to support a bill this summer that means lights out on the looming 2012 ban on the common light bulb. Upton himself co-sponsored 2007 legislation making light bulbs illegal, a ban that has become a symbol of bipartisan Big Government run amok.

Upton has come under increased pressure in recent weeks, sources say, after failing to follow up on a promise he made after assuming the committee chairmanship that he would hold hearings on reversing the ban. After months of paralysis – and with the ban just six months from going into effect on January 1 – outrage was building among his own Republican committee colleagues and conservative activists, including a national petition campaign, FreeOurLight.org, sponsored by the influential Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Freedom Action’s Free Our Light campaign has demonstrated that there is widespread public opposition to the light bulb ban,” says Myron Ebell, Director of Freedom Action at CEI. “We’re pleased that Chairman Upton has seen the light and congratulate him on his decision. We look forward to the House passing the bill to repeal the ban and its eventual enactment later this year.”

This bill was crony capitalism at its worst. Major corporations like Philips and GE were stuck with the “screwy” compact fluorescent light bulbs, overpriced with significant hazards, that consumers weren’t purchasing, no matter how much green propaganda was used to sell them. At least 85 percent of the market for light bulbs were for the traditional bulbs invented by Thomas Edison. So the big corporate lobbyists head to Capitol Hill, arm-twist and buy a few legislators, and presto! The competition becomes banned so consumers have no choice but to buy a product they don’t want.

It’s similar to the method that Big Ethanol uses to forces its inefficient and lousy product into American vehicles. Neither ethanol nor compact fluorescent light bulbs can compete or even survive on the free market without subsidies and/or mandates. More proof that the pinhead elites don’t trust the little people to buy the “right” product but believe they must force Americans to do what they think is right and subsidize the FAIL with tax dollars.

[T]he ban had been supported by big corporations like General Electric and Philips who saw a an opportunity to use government to monopolize a new, more expensive market while transferring jobs to China to earn higher margins.

As we noted, crony capitalism. Aided and abetted by the best politicians money can buy.

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