Let there be (incandescent) light!
You wish you lived in Texas. It’s okay to admit it.
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.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental group, is calling on Perry to veto the bill.
“The Texas legislation is designed to showcase the state’s independence,” said Bob Keefe, senior press secretary with the council. “But what it really shows off is how some politicians in the Lone Star State will do anything to score political points – even if it means echoing misinformation and wasting time and money passing legislation that can’t practically be implemented and isn’t in the best interest of constituents.”
Perry has until Sunday to veto bills, sign them into law or let them become law without his signature.
Gov. Perry didn’t veto this one. So we can keep on using non-hazardous light bulbs that are actually bright enough to read by.
I’m sorry, but the following sentence has a problem and needs to be revised:
“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.”
Supposing that someone is or does manufacture incandescent bulbs within Texas and they are sold after the Federal ban is enacted.
If the Feds do NOT take Texas to court then it is an automatic win for the states asserting 10th Amendment privilege. Be the product a light bulb, marijuana or firearms the Feds would have ceded that they can’t make a good case, minus the emotional clap trap and money that the Brady Campaign always tries to haul out.
One could successfully (in my opinion) argue that failing to try and stop the incandescent bulb but then trying to stop someone from making a “Texas Only” class 3 firearm would be a violation of the Equal Protections clause.
Since, per federal law, there would be no interstate market in Edison style light bulbs, there would be no interstate commerce to regulate, and no interstate market to affect.
Thanks to a century of spineless court actions if anything in the manufacturing process crossed a state line then the commerce clause applies. If a clerk in the HR office used a penicl which was made with graphite from Utah then the entire operation is inter-state commerce.
“the measure (subject)…….lets……avoid…..authority…..or ….repeal.”
Are you referring to the mention of the “repeal”??? note: repeal should in fact mirror Texas law, or agree with it in any case.
I don’t believe anyone is making incandescent bulbs in Texas. Unless someone opens a factory, this is a dead letter, which is too bad. I’m up for a good Commerce Clause fight.
Texas is sure to lose under current case law, of course, but that case law needs to be tested and retested, because its crap.
Get ready, Texas, for a whole lotta lightbulb tourists. If we can’t buy reading lights in our home states—and without a legislature and a governor like those in Txas, we can’t—thousands of us will be arriving with empty carry-on bags and we’ll be spending our tourist dollars at every Home Depot in the Lone Star State.
As for commenter R.C. Dean (above) there may be no incandescent light bulb manufacturers in Texas today, but I fully expect a thriving manufacturing sector to arise to fill the lamps that are going out all over America.
Go Texas! Go Perry! Go free markets!
I may be a rare bird among the conservative leaning, but my transition to fluorescents has been almost painless. What pushed me over the edge was the pitifully short lifetimes of my standard 100w incandescents. I typically couldn’t go more than a few weeks without yet another bulb going “pop” when I turned it on. And after a few words of profanity it’s back to the drawer for spare bulbs, back on a chair to replace a hallway light or chandelier bulbs. No more.
The trick is to get CFLs with a high enough wattage (~30w to replace a 100w incandescent) and to get the right color “temperature” to match those of the typical incandescent. And I don’t lose sleep about the mercury content. I grew up with mercury thermometers, fluorescent overheads in my father’s shop and a fluorescent desk lamp I’ve used since college. There’s also trace mercury in the fish they urge us to eat, and in the air from burning coal for power.
What’s unfortunate is that almost all CFLs are made in China, but whose fault is that when GE and others chose not to go after the market. Dimmable CFLs are also more expensive (but nowhere near as expensive as LEDs – glad they’re not mandating *those*), as are smaller specialty bulbs.
Yes indeed Raymond, you are a “rare bird” among conservatives, but it has nothing to do with how well you tolerate the new bulbs. True conservatives don’t give a damn what kind of light bulb you use, we just like to point out the government has no business dictating what is the “right” light bulb and what is the “wrong” one. And that goes the same for cars, flush toilets and any other thing they think they can regulate.
I use as many CFLs and LEDs as I can but they don’t work everywhere and they are expensive, and probably are not really competitive yet. When the alternative lights become economically competitive there will not be a need for a ban; before that time it’s just bad economics. I am entitled to squander my own money.
(but nowhere near as expensive as LEDs – glad they’re not mandating *those*)
Give ‘em time.
Raymond, my son and I are among the millions of people who suffer adverse physical reactions to fluorescent lighting. To FORCE people to buy devices that make them suffer is immoral, to my mind. Part of the reason for the rise in ADHD in schoolchildren is that so many kids are sensitive to fluorescent lighting. I’ve been agitating against fluorescent lighting for at least 20 years — and that was before the government decided to make the damn things MANDATORY.
The burned-out bulbs have to be taken to household hazardous waste centers, many of which are only open for collections a few days out of the year. Broken bulbs are a nightmare. Have you actually read the EPA’s disposal guidelines?
I doubt that more than a very tiny percentage of consumers are actually following the guidelines.
A much better bet all around is 130V (as opposed to the standard 120V) incandescent bulbs. They last nearly three times as long as the usual bulbs, but with all the advantages of incandescents. The best of both worlds!
Maybe we’ll get another Smokey and the Bandit Movie out of this. They just need to update the theme song:
“The boys have eye strain in Atlanta,
And there’s bulbs in Texarkana
And we’ll bring ‘em back no matter what it takes
Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’…”
I had that song going through my head since I started reading this…Dangit!
IIRC, Germany outlawed incandescent bulbs a while ago but they’re still widely available, marketed as ‘heat bulbs’ instead of light bulbs. Everyone just plays along.
“Manufactured and sold in Texas…”
Wouldn’t that cover a mail-order sale to a consumer anywhere in the USA? The sale still happens in Texas.
As the song says: “I’ve been sent to spread the message: ‘God blessed Texas.’ “
My experience with CFLs is that they DO NOT last as long as incandescent—quite the opposite in fact. I will no longer install them in hard-to-reach places. And if there is a light-bulb manufacturer in Texas, I wish someone would tell me who/what/where/how and why they are, because I will do free advertising for them.
Thank you so much, conservative activists. I am an ADD (“ring of fire” type) somewhat autistic old school scientist by training who now runs a currently tiny business on the Upoer West Side. I thank you for finally rooting out Bush’s light bulb ban for what it really is: tyranny.
Cold fusion featured in the LA Times in ’89 before it was debunked. Environmentalists were aghast at the possibility of cheap clean energy:
“It’s like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.” – Paul Ehrlich (mentor of John Cook of the SkepticalScience blog, author of “Climate Change Denial”)
“Clean-burning, non-polluting, hydrogen-using bulldozers still could knock down trees or build housing developments on farmland.” – Paul Ciotti (LA Times)
“It gives some people the false hope that there are no limits to growth and no environmental price to be paid by having unlimited sources of energy.” – Jeremy Rifkin (NY Times)
“Many people assume that cheaper, more abundant energy will mean that mankind is better off, but there is no evidence for that.” – Laura Nader (sister of Ralph)
CLIMATEGATE 101: “For your eyes only…Don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone….Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.” – Phil “Hide The Decline” Jones to Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann
The most popular AGW supporting blogs are owned by PR firms financed by green energy speculators:
DeSmogBlog = green PR firm paid for by a $125 million online gambling site convicted money launderer who sells solar cells.
RealClimate = web site registered to left wing PR firm behind the junk science link of vaccines to autism and the silicone breast implant scare which bankrupted Dow Corning.
ClimateProgress = left wing think tank.
“SkepticalScience” = overlaps with a nuclear weapons design firm now getting $330 million green energy contracts.
Here I present The Quick Glance Guide to Global Warming:
Denial: http://bit.ly/m6xySt
Oceans: http://oi53.tinypic.com/2i6os4y.jpg
Thermometers: http://oi52.tinypic.com/2agnous.jpg
Earth: http://oi56.tinypic.com/2reh021.jpg
Ice: http://oi53.tinypic.com/wmav6g.jpg
Authority: http://oi52.tinypic.com/wlt4i8.jpg
Prophecy: http://oi52.tinypic.com/30bfktk.jpg
Psychopathy: http://oi52.tinypic.com/1zqu71i.jpg
Icon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmPzLzj-3XY
Thinker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n92YenWfz0Y
-=NikFromNYC=- Ph.D. in Carbon Chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)