House Votes To Block the Light Bulb Ban
The House on Friday passed the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2012. Included was an amendment adopted on a voice vote that would block the ban on standard incandescent light bulbs that is currently scheduled to start going into effect on January 1, 2012. The amendment was offered by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.).
On Tuesday, the House failed to pass a stand-alone bill sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), H. R. 2417, that would repeal the ban permanently. The vote on the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act was 233 to 193, but failed because it was brought to the floor under a special, expedited procedure that requires a two-thirds majority. Ten Republicans voted No, but more surprisingly only five Democrats voted Yes. Democratic support for repealing the light bulb ban collapsed when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and then the White House cracked the whip.
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China Continues to Sail Forward with Coal
As the U.S. government wages war on coal, China is moving ahead with a number of large coal-mining projects to provide cheap, reliable energy to meet their ever-growing demand. The latest, in the Xinjiang region, is a project with U.S. based Peabody Energy Co. It is expected to produce 50 million metric tons per year, about 2% of China’s 2010 production of 3.3 billion metric tons and 3 times the annual U.S. production of roughly 1 billion metric tons. As China’s energy needs continue to increase, their production and consumption of coal is projected to steadily rise well into the future.
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Following up on Marlo’s post yesterday concerning the difficulties of bringing cellulosic ethanol to market, the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial about the (lack of) fuel, and EPA’s decision to require refiners to buy ‘credits’ — Cellulosic Ethanol and Unicorns:
The EPA set the 2011 standard at six million gallons. Reality hasn’t cooperated. Zero gallons have been produced in the last six months and the corner isn’t visible over the next six months either. The EPA has only approved a single plant to sell the stuff, operated by Range Fuels near Soperton, Georgia. The company used to be a press corps favorite and has been lauded by the last two Presidents, but it shut down its cellulosic operations earlier this year to work through technical snafus.
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Yesterday’s edition of Greenwire features an amazing column on cellulosic biofuels by reporter Paul Voosen. It’s got interviews with leading researchers, industrial history going back to WWII, science, economics, and the narrative suspense of a detective story.
Voosen’s main point: Despite substantial private and public investment, there have been “no Eureka moments” in the “long U.S. campaign” to scale up Nature’s digestive processes (found in fungi and the guts of termites, cows, dung beetles, and other fauna) to break down cellulose and create affordable alcohol fuels from prairie grasses, wood wastes, and other fibrous plant materials.
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President Obama is refusing accept deals that would raise the federal debt ceiling because they would require him to accept cuts in wasteful green-jobs and rail boondoggles and stimulus spending: “The president has made a bipartisan agreement even more difficult by declaring certain spending off-limits to cuts. Mr. Obama’s ‘untouchable’ list includes his $1 trillion health-care reform, $128 billion in unspent stimulus funds, education and training outlays, his $53 billion high-speed rail proposal, spending on ‘green’ jobs and student loans, and virtually any structural changes to entitlements except further squeezing payments to doctors, hospitals and health-care professionals.” If the debt ceiling is not raised, America’s credit rating may be downgraded, leading to higher interest payments on the debt in the future.
Obama’s refusal to reconsider green-jobs spending is unfortunate given how such spending has backfired, effectively outsourcing thousands of American jobs at taxpayer expense. ABC News reports on the subsidies for Chinese wind turbines contained in the stimulus package:
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Last night I made my network debut on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. I wasn’t interviewed. Nor was I mentioned by name. Rather, NBC Nightly News ran a story on the light bulb ban featuring a snippet from a short film I appeared in last year, about a dystopian future in which incandescent light bulbs are only available for purchase in back alley, secondary markets. I play the role of a “black marketer,” as my character is introduced by the NBC reporter.
To see the NBC News segment, click here. Below is the short film featured in the segment, “The Future of the Light Bulb Ban.” And click here, here, and here for excellent commentary on the light bulb ban by my colleagues Sam Kazman, Brain McGraw, and David Bier, respectively.
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Few laws epitomize the belief that government should micromanage the daily affairs of Americans more completely than Congress’ ban on incandescent light bulbs. It’s an intrusion into the most mundane aspect of our lives. It violates the rights of both consumers and producers. It forces Americans to buy a hazardous, mercury-laden alternative. It sets a precedent under which almost anything in our lives can be controlled by bureaucrats. Given one word for such an outrageous policy, what would you choose?
“Impressive,” says the Washington Post in an editorial released Wednesday. “[It’s] an easy way to save energy,” the article continues. “All Congress has done is set a national standard for how much power it takes to produce a certain amount of light. And there’s good reason to demand improved efficiency; about 90 percent of the energy that traditional incandescent bulbs use is given off as heat, not light.”
Consumers do demand efficiency, which is why light bulbs have improved so dramatically since the days of Edison. The belief that government can simply mandate improved efficiency, however, is just fanciful. Consumers know what is best for them, and they weigh their options accordingly. No consumer thinks, “How much electricity can I waste?” As long as consumers pay their own bills, they have incentives to save energy.
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Indulge me for a moment, and imagine if an American president nominated the CEO of ExxonMobil to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Do you think that would fly with the public? I doubt it. Regardless of the nominee’s beliefs on environmental policy, it looks wrong. Yet the flip side also holds true: A rainbow warrior is an incongruous choice to head the Commerce Department. Again, it simply doesn’t look right.
This is why I’m amazed that President Barack Obama nominated John Bryson, co-founder of the environmental special interest Natural Resources Defense Council, to be the Secretary of Commerce. Mr. Bryson isn’t merely a discordant nomination; his record suggests he’s an awful one. Environmentalist lawyers, such as the ones employed by the NRDC, are a clear and present danger to job creation. At every turn, they litigate to stop employment opportunities that would benefit human beings, in order to protect insects, or minnows, or America’s supposed population of pregnant, subsistence fisherwomen. For environmental extremists like John Bryson, economic development—the purpose of the Commerce Department—takes a backseat to critters and phantom communities.
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Regulating air quality under the Clean Air Act is like eating Pringels: Once you pop, you can’t stop. That is, the Clean Air Act is structured such that regulation begets more regulation. This chain reaction is a major reason why the Obama administration’s decision to regulate greenhouse gases pursuant to the Clean Air Act was either foolish or diabolical. In so doing, the Environmental Protection Agency opened Pandora’s Box. It wants to choose when and where it regulates greenhouse gases, but it doesn’t have this discretion. Environmentalist special interests can and will use the courts to force the EPA’s hand. By the same token, however, this means EPA can use such suits as political cover, claiming it does not want to regulate this or that industry, or does not want to regulate under this or that Clean Air Act provision, but has no choice because ‘the court made us do it.’
To wit, last week the Center for Biological Diversity, an extremist environmental organization, won a significant case against the EPA in the D.C. Circuit Court. The litigation stemmed from the Center for Biological Diversity’s desire for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector under the Clean Air Act. The first step towards such regulation is for the EPA to determine that greenhouse gases from airplanes “endanger” public health and welfare. In December 2007, the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the EPA to make this “endangerment” finding. To date, the EPA has refused. So the Center for Biological Diversity sued to compel action.
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