Yeah, Incandescent Light Bulbs Have Pretty Much Been Banned

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In non-immigration news today, House Republicans voted yet again to repeal a Bush-era law that mandates more efficient light bulbs. This has been a tea party hobbyhorse for years now, symbolizing their resistance to nanny state socialism and overbearing tyrannical government. Or something. In any case, they hold this vote every few months or so, but like all of these symbolic votes, it will go nowhere in the Senate. So it’s meaningless.

But it got me curious: did the federal government really ban incandescent light bulbs, as conservatives keep saying? In the past, I’ve been a little confused about this. The law clearly doesn’t explicitly outlaw incandescent bulbs, but it’s surprisingly hard to find a straight answer about whether, in practice, the new standards will force incandescent bulbs off the market. I went looking again tonight, and it’s still surprisingly hard to get a straight answer about this.

So I decided to perform some empirical research: I went to the store to see if I could buy an incandescent bulb. Both 75-watt and 100-watt bulbs are currently required to meet the new efficiency standards, so that’s what I looked for (60-watt bulbs, ominously, aren’t required to meet the new standards until Black Wednesday, the day Obamacare goes into effect). Did I find any?

No, I did not. Not at my local Ace hardware, not at my local Rite-Aid drug store, and not at my local Lowe’s. What’s more, the light bulb section at Lowe’s featured a big sign that said “DID YOU KNOW: Incandescent bulbs are being phased out.” You basically have a choice of LED, CFL, or halogen bulbs. 100-watt incandescents are a thing of the past.

Now, the halogens are pretty affordable. They go for a buck or two apiece depending on how many you buy. The others are more expensive but save a lot of money in the long run. So consumers are in fine shape and energy is being saved. It’s all good. Nonetheless, on the question of whether incandescent bulbs have been banned, I have to award this decision to the tea partiers on points. The law doesn’t say that incandescents are banned, but its practical effect has indeed been to make them unavailable. Colloquially speaking, it’s not a stretch to say they’ve been banned.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate