Remember when light bulbs were plentiful, diverse, and as easy to dispose of as tossing them in the nearest waste receptacle? If you don't, you're missing out on the misty nostalgia; if you do, it's time to mourn (again):
Incandescent light bulbs, which have been in use in the United States for more than a century, are on their way out in the new year. The federal government has prohibited their manufacture and import starting Wednesday.
The latest ban covers 40-watt and 60-watt bulbs. The 100-watt and 75-watt varieties had already been phased out. The bans were signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act.
Opponents of the law protest that the government is making decisions for consumers rather than letting the marketplace determine the products people want.
"When we make a purchase, it's about quality, price, how much money we have now, can I use that money for a better investment? I don't need the government to say that I am making the incorrect decision and therefore I should buy energy-efficient products," said Daren Bakst, research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation.
He decries the light-bulb ban as representing heightened government overreach.
"The light-bulb issue is about a complete ban of a product. It's overkill. Now you have something you can no longer buy. That's really indefensible," he said.
"Forget about choice. It's basically saying not only can you not make smart choices, we have so little faith in you that we will make sure you can't buy those goods anymore.
"Here you have a central-planning bureaucrat that knows everything, saying we're going to make sure you do the right thing. Granted, Congress passed the law, but this looks like the state knows better than the public does," Bakst said.
One can look at this from several different angles.
Looking at it as a consumer, the new curly-cue bulbs last longer than incandescents. On the other hand, the new curly-cue bulbs are more expensive, and you can't just throw them away, but have to dispose of them at the nearest hazardous materials depot because they contain mercury. On balance, I prefer incandescent bulbs because they're cheap and easy on both ends. But my consumer choice has been taken away.
From an environmental and fiscal standpoint, it seems to me that whatever nominal energy savings the new curly-cue bulbs yield is more than offset by the danger of releasing toxic mercury into water tables and the exorbitant cost of disposal to prevent it.
Constitutional speaking, of course, it's one more cobbing of the Commerce Clause hole that is in perpetually desperate need of reconstitutionalist tightening. Or, put the obligatory other way, can anybody imagine the Founding Fathers tolerating a federal government that dictates what light bulbs We, The People, can buy and which We cannot?
It's almost reminiscent of.....ObamaCare. And depressingly consistent with Obamanomics:
The prohibition has also led to U.S. job losses, as factories that made incandescent bulbs have been forced to close.
Because of the ban, General Electric closed a factory with 200 employees in Winchester, Va., that was the last major incandescent manufacturing facility in the United States. Now the work is going to places such as China, where some of the new compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are made.
Textbook leftism: An unconstitutional, top-down, centrally-planned initiative that impoverishes the country, pollutes the environment, and screws consumers, in exchange for promised benefits that won't be realized for decades, if ever.
When Benny Hill once cracked a joke about "three-watt bulbs," these are the days of which he was speaking. I wonder if he realized he was prophesying as well.
Fred Scuttle, indeed.
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