Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: Banning Incandescent Bulb Appropriate Federal Act

[Ezliving_Jim]

Reid: Banning Incandescent Bulb Appropriate Federal Act
By Josiah Ryan
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
December 20, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) told Cybercast News Service Thursday that a provision in the new energy law that will effectively ban the use of the incandescent light bulb in the United States by 2020 was an appropriate exercise of federal power.

"Do you think it is the appropriate role of the federal government to effectively bar incandescent light bulbs in 2020 from American homes?" Cybercast News Service asked Reid. "Yes," he said. (Listen to the audio)

Reid had just attended a ceremony at the Department of Energy where President Bush had signed the law. It had been approved by the House last Tuesday by a 314-100 vote and by the Senate last Thursday by an 86-8 vote.

The law mandates that new cars and trucks get 35 miles per gallon by 2020, requires that 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol and 21 billion gallons of other "advanced biofuels" be produced in the United States by 2022, and mandates that by 2020 light bulbs be 70 percent more efficient in their use of electricity, a provision that is understood, in practical terms, to ban the incandescent light bulb as of that date.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), a principal sponsor of the law, told the Associated Press, for example, that the legislation would make the incandescent light bulb " virtually obsolete."

When asked if he supported the phase-out of the incandescent light bulb included in the law, Senate Majority Leader Reid said: "I supported everything that was in the bill." (Listen to the audio)

Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) took a more moderate approach on that question. "It's the best we could do under the circumstances," he said. (Listen to the audio) "I don't usually like mandates. I would try to do it less with mandates if I had a choice. Its not the way I would have done it." (Listen to the audio)

Nelson speculated that President Bush was probably not pleased by the manner in which the law will implement certain energy saving policies. "The President signed it and he probably didn't like the idea of the mandate either but sometimes you take the bill as it finally is with the good the bad, and the ugly. That's just the way it is." (Listen to the audio)

[Ezliving_Jim]

How does this new law effect the UV lamps used in tanning beds?

[Brian Oshman]

Florescent lamps are not incandescent, they are iridescent or luminescent.

[solarmeter®]

Now we can all get tans walking in Home Depo and Lowes. Of course we'll need some eye protection...

[Editor-in-Chief]

...mandates that by 2020 light bulbs be 70 percent more efficient in their use of electricity...

I haven't read the actual legislation.

If it actually mandates that all electric "lamps" be 70% more efficient by 2020, then I think we have a problem.

[solarmeter®]

LED tanning to the rescue? Buy stock in ITS haha.