Industry: GOP Light Bulb War a Dim Idea
*link goes to the print-friendly version of Politico story to spare readers from the inevitable onslaught of DERP in the comments
Last week, the GOP won a long-fought battle to kill new energy efficiency rules for bulbs when House and Senate negotiators included a rider to block enforcement of the regulations in the $1 trillion-plus, year-end spending bill.
The rider may have advanced GOP talking points about light bulb ‘freedom of choice,’ but t didn’t win them many friends in the industry, who are more interested in their bottom line than political rhetoric.
Big companies like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania spent big bucks preparing for the standards, and the industry is fuming over the GOP bid to undercut them.
I hope those companies put their money where their mouth is and make their displeasure known by donating to Democrats.
After spending four years and millions of dollars prepping for the new rules, businesses say pulling the plug now could cost them. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association has waged a lobbying campaign for more than a year to persuade the GOP to abandon the effort.
Funny how the GOP only listens to lobbyists for corrupt finance/banking firms and dirty energy companies. Anyone else can drop dead, it seems.
Manufacturers are worried that the rider will undermine companies’ investments and ‘allow potential bad actors to sell inefficient light bulbs in the United States without any fear of federal enforcement,’ said Kyle Pitsor, the trade group’s vice president of government relations.
Honey Badger GOP Teabagger don’t give a shit.
So, if industry wants these rules, why is the GOP grinding them to a halt? Republicans say they’re pro-choice when it comes to light bulbs.
The rules — authorized under a 2007 energy law signed by President George W. Bush — call for incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient. They’re still slated to take effect Jan. 1, but the rider blocks funding for the Energy Department to enforce the rules through Sept. 30.
Modern Republicans do have a talent for throwing actual good work by George W. Bush under the bus.
Limited-government groups and conservative pundits have waged an aggressive campaign to upend the standards.
‘The American people don’t like being told what to do,’ said Thomas Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, which has lobbied Congress on the issue. ‘I’m glad I get to keep my light bulbs.’
Lulz. So apparently Schatz, his group name aside, is just fine with energy waste and all the environmental hazards it brings. I wonder, if he were in a drought-stricken zone, would be run his garden hose at full blast just to spite water-restriction bylaws?
This is why America can’t have nice things.