Trump Administration Ditches Bush-Obama Light Bulb Mandates

Well, in a turn of events that’s bad news for the crowd of progressives and hippies who love pushing their expensive light bulbs on the rest of us, some new regulations set to go into effect against cheaper bulbs have been busted.

Formulated during the Bush administration and implemented under the Obama Administration, Trump’s Department of Energy says no to new light bulb mandates that were set to go into effect in January of 2020. A small excerpt from the DOE’s statement:

SUMMARY: On February 11, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) proposing to withdraw the revised definitions of general service lamp (GSL), general service incandescent lamp (GSIL) and other supplemental definitions, that were to go into effect on January 1, 2020. DOE responds to comments received on the NOPR in this final rule and maintains the existing regulatory definitions of GSL and GSIL, which are the same as the statutory definitions of those terms. DATES: The final rules published on January 19, 2017 (82 FR 7276 and 82 FR 7322), are withdrawn effective [INSERT DATE 30 DAYS AFTER DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER].

The move is an effort to curtail the implementation of LED replacement mandates that would slowly remove more energy-inefficient halogen and incandescent bulbs. The Washington Times reports that there will be some pushback:

Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, said the rollback will leave Americans with higher energy bills and more waste to throw away.

“The Trump administration is trying to protect technology that was first invented in the 1800s. It’s like trying to protect the horse and buggy from the automobile technology,” he said, according to NPR. “It makes no sense to go back to technology from two centuries ago, when we have new technology today which saves consumers money and helps protect the environment by reducing the amount of power that we need.”

According to CNBC, there will be legal challenges that this reversal order will face, but not all people are unhappy about the reversal. Supporters may perceive the move to be another one of President Trump’s massive regulation cuts and perhaps argue that they aren’t anti-progress, but more about pro-freedom of choice for companies, and consumers. Unlike a lot of the other dissenters, some groups have positive feedback. From CNBC:

In contrast, industry groups like the National Electrical Manufacturers Association have pushed against the new standards that require consumers to use more efficient options, saying that they would risk jobs and consumers’ ability to choose.

The bulbs at stake are decorative globes in bathrooms, candle-shaped lights, three-way lightbulbs and reflector bulbs. These four categories collectively account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, or almost half of conventional sockets in the U.S., according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. A new rule that will publish on Thursday will get rid of a previous standard that would have required adding these four categories to the energy-efficient group.

The Energy Department said Wednesday that the final rule would maintain existing definitions of general service lamp and general service incandescent lamps and return “choice to consumers.”

“Different households have different needs, and it was both unfair and illegal to limit their options by expanding the definition of GSLs to include the hundreds of millions of light bulbs that Congress explicitly exempted,” a Department of Energy official told CNBC.

NEMA said in a statement that it welcomed the administration’s new rule, saying it would define “the scope of general service lamps to be consistent with the intent of Congress when it enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.” The trade association said LED bulbs are selling well and Trump’s new rule “will not impact the market’s continuing, rapid adoption of energy-saving lighting in the next few years.”