(FOX NEWS) The House’s passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill Wednesday that dictates the budgets for all federal agencies may be a desperately needed lifeline for the lightbulb.
The bill includes a prohibition on funding for “the administration’s onerous ‘lightbulb’ standard,” as Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., described it
, which had sought to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of ordinary incandescent lightbulbs but ultimately spelled the end of the road for the century-old technology.
A portion of that 2007 law, which finally took effect on Jan. 1, mandated that manufacturers improve their lightbulbs: 40W bulbs must draw just 10.5W, and 60W bulbs must draw no more than 11W. The result is, effectively, a ban: Incandescents simply can’t keep up with those twisty compact fluorescent (CFL) and newer LED bulbs.
