Incandescent Ban Is Result Of Crony Capitalism Not Greenies

Industry, Not Environmentalists, Killed Traditional Bulbs

 

 

 

” The 2007 Energy Bill, a stew of regulations and subsidies, set mandatory efficiency standards for most light bulbs. Any bulbs that couldn’t produce a given brightness at the specified energy input would be illegal. That meant the 25-cent bulbs most Americans used in nearly every socket of their home would be outlawed.

  People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the planet. That’s rarely the case, and it wasn’t here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents).

  This wasn’t a case of an industry getting on board with an inevitable regulation in order to tweak it. The lighting industry was the main reason the legislation was moving. As the New York Times reported in 2011, “Philips formed a coalition with environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for higher standards.” “

 

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State-mandated Economic Suicide , Part ?

  Rand Simberg on the headlong rush toward economic suicide in the ” Golden State ”

   Whether it’s Illinois and Caterpillar , New York and Remington or California and the Space Industry the “blue state” model is unraveling .

” In the last decade, the town has
become a hotbed of aerospace innovation. XCOR is just one of several companies pushing the envelope not just of performance, but also of cost effectiveness in spaceflight. This is because of the town’s favorable flying weather
and access to the large, restricted airspace just to the south at Edwards Air Force Base and
NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. Its proximity to Los Angeles, with its remaining technological infrastructure, has been invaluable
as well, not to mention the culture, and the variety of southern California geography and scenery. From beaches to desert to mountains, L.A. is an attractive vicinity for employees. West Texas, in contrast, is hundreds of miles from any major urban center and farther still from any ocean.

  What Texas offers, though, beyond the direct financial incentives, is a much more business-friendly and employee-friendly environment. Even people with modest salaries pay almost ten
percent of their salaries in California income tax. In Texas, that rate will go to zero. In California, Proposition 65 requires warning signage for every fluid on site, with fines for failure to post
— just one more burden on a company that.builds and operates rocket-powered vehicles. When California’s idiotic new carbon trading law comes into effect this year, the company is going to have to start tracking every gallon of
fuel it burns and report it to the state. No one in Texas will care. “