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Spending Bill Includes Provision De-funding Obama’s ‘Onerous Light Bulb’ Standard

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One of the provisions nestled away in the $1.1 trillion bill lawmakers hammered out on Tuesday night prohibits funding for President Barack Obama’s “onerous light bulb” standard.

The more efficient fluorescent, LED and halogen bulbs, replaced the older 40- and 60-watt compact bulbs. The older bulbs were considered a legacy dating back to the Thomas Edison era. The replacement, which began under the George W. Bush administration but was continued and pushed by Obama, became a lightening rod of controversy in the 2010s.

In fact, Obama’s war on incandescent light bulbs became a politically controversial topic in Republican circles.

In 2011, for instance, Republicans couched the president’s incandescent light bulb phaseout as a fight between consumer freedom and government intrusion.

Tensions were high during the run-up to the 2012 presidential election when then-presidential candidate Michelle Bachman told a gaggle of her constituents her presidency will allow you to “buy any light bulb you want in the United States of America.”

But as time passed, bringing with it falling fluorescent light bulb prices, so too did Republican anger over the light bulb standard. In fact, last year, with little fanfare, federal energy-efficiency rules barred the manufacture and import of traditional 40- and 60-watt incandescent bulbs.

Still, some Republicans believe the standards make for too onerous a set of regulations.

“I think in general that Rs have decided that, with the record clear as to their opposition, they will let this Administration roll out these and other regulations directly affecting consumers, like Obama care, and see how consumers feel about them,” Linda Stuntz, a former deputy energy secretary from the George H.W. Bush administration, told Politico last year after the ban was passed.

The light bulb standard is not the only provision likely to raise hackles from environmentalists, among others.

Another provision included in the Energy and Waters Appropriations section of the bill allows continued funding for the Yucca Mountain in Nevada to be used as a nuclear waste dumping ground. The site’s funding has raised hackles from many locals and Democrats, including retiring Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.

A report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, conducted in August, found that concerns from environmentalists and locals that leakage from the site might poison nearby wildlife neighborhoods were unfounded. Any leakage from the site, the commission found, would likely have limited impacts on cancer rates or other diseases in people and minimal impacts on the downstream environments.

The office at the Department of Energy did not reply in time for this article’s publication.

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