Congress's latest fun and games to reverse the incandescent light bulb ban won't have any practical effect.
It's official -- the members of the US Congress have lost their minds in siding with Tea Party Texan moron, Michael Burgess (R-TX). He is an MD who you'd think would have a lick of sense about science and technology. But, being a Texan, he's obviously an oil industry shill who has installed himself on the House Energy Committee; he's a mole who will likely become the "expert" who will let lawmakers look the other way as US aquifers are fracked into Love Canal lookalikes.
This is the same Rep. Burgess who has introduced measures to defund enforcement of the EISA incandescent ban a number of times in the past, starting in 2011.
In one stroke of the pen, and thanks to Burgess's persistence, our elected idiots in Washington have taken every dime of funding for energy-efficiency standards enforcement away from the US Department of Energy. This occurs on page 435 of the 1,582-page "Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014":
Sec 322 None of the funds made available in this Act may be used --
a) To implement or enforce Section 430.32x of Title 10, Code of Federal regulations
When we look up 10CFR 430.32, we discover it is most of the bones of Energy Star. Refrigerators, furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, shower heads and faucets, dish and clothes washers, and... light bulbs -- all affected. Fluorescent, CFL, and incandescent light bulbs to be exact. While all of the efficiency standards remain set forth in Federal Law, Congress got clever, not by repealing the law, but instead by yanking DOE funding to implement and enforce energy conservation, because, quoting Burgess:
If the new energy-efficient light bulbs save money, and if they're better for the environment, we should trust our constituents to make the choice on their own move toward these bulbs.
Net effect: nil
While it's a violation of Federal Law to produce devices that do not comply with 10 CFR 430.32, DOE cannot enforce it. It's that simple. While members the media seem to think this will unleash a flood of lighting crap from the Far East, and Chikkin Littles are forecasting that tons of jobs will be lost, I would take a different angle on it.
While the Texas monkey is alleged to have spearheaded a brilliant strategy to defund DOE, he did not defund Homeland Security, which happens to operate the US Customs service. He also did not defund the Department of Justice, which includes US Marshals and the Attorney General's office, which filters down to federal prosecutors in each of the judicial districts in the USA.
So, if you are a domestic manufacturer of incandescent or other lousy lights, you are free to peddle your wares in direct violation of federal law, knowing that DOE cannot enforce it. If you are a sleazy Chinese manufacturer of very low-cost and inefficient lamps that you want to dump into the US, because the EU is environmentally responsible and won't put up with it, send your shipping containers from Shenzhen to Oakland.
But, waiting for you, thanks to tip-offs from environmentalists or energy-saving lamp manufacturers, will be a US Marshal, instructed by the federal courts as a result of citizen complaint to halt the import of goods in violation of federal Law -- with subsequent shipments identified and confiscated by the US Customs Service. If you are a domestic snake-oil vendor, there's nothing stopping you from getting cited or summonsed for violation of federal law and having to appear in federal court to answer as to why the mice are playing when the cat's away.
So, there you have it. "Conservatives" are dancing in the LED-lit streets at the prospect of being able to buy incandescent light bulbs again. I'm not a lawyer, but it looks to me as if this is nothing more than throwing a bone to spoon-fed Tea Partier constituents who want to hear the story of less government regulation. But in fact, it appears to me that the federal Law still stands, and is enforceable by US Customs, US Marshals, and federal prosecutors. What's really sad in all this is the way the mainstream press is running around saying the light bulb ban has been lifted -- far from it, in my opinion.
Carry on, idiots.
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