Texas Gov. Rick Perry today signed a law that will free Texans from the federal government’s impending incandescent light bulb ban:
The measure, sent to Gov. Rick Perry for consideration [he subsequently signed it], lets any incandescent light bulb manufactured in Texas – and sold in that state – avoid the authority of the federal government or the repeal of the 2007 energy independence act that starts phasing out some incandescent light bulbs next year.
Texas wasn’t the first state to explore this kind of legislation: South Carolina has advanced a similar bill and, last year, the Arizona legislature passed a bill to the same effect — but Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed it.
Few issues illuminate the consumer will to choose — and the disparate faith in consumers of liberals and conservatives, as revealed by proposed policies — as clearly as the federal government’s light bulb ban. As Heritage Foundation energy analyst Nick Loris puts it, “Consumers can make intelligent decisions on their own without the government forcing choices upon them.”
That’s a relief.
Now, who in Texas is going to be making the incandescent bulbs ?
Looks like a 10th Amendment and ‘Commerce clause’ showdown is coming soon. I know of other states that have done similar with gun sales, too.
The 10th Amendment of the Constitution;
The Commerce clause, Article I, Section 8;
From the Federalist Papers, no. 42, the original intent of the ‘commerce clause’ was to ensure the regulation of tolls and excise taxes amongst the states themselves, to ensure that no one state gained power over another’s commerce. It was not meant to be an avenue for the federal government to enact non-monetary regulations within a specific, or the general, marketplace of goods, from the manufacture all the way through to the purchase. This clause has been the most abused by those wishing to endear to the federal government more control over the states, and the country, than was originally intended.
I have included the ‘commerce clause’, and the discussion in the preceding paragraph, to show how the federal government will try to negate this action by Texas, concerning the simple acts of making, and buying, lightbulbs. They will use the expanded inclusion of the manufacturing of the lightbulb itself to prevent the sale of it, even if it is entirely within the state of Texas, and thus try and render the 10th Amendment a moot point, by simply saying that the federal government has the power to regulate this commerce, and because of that, Texas does not.
Is it possible that there might be some sort of moral obligation to future generations to discourage people from using 100 watts of energy to produce 23 watts worth of light?
Surely there are more logical places to fight Constitutional battles.
@Greg:
Just a question, or three: Is it your place to tell someone that the 100 watts they are burning up for light is somehow less moral than yourself using only those 23 watts for your light? Isn’t the action of one person telling another what their morals should be one of those things that brought about the abortion issue, or the gay “rights” issue? Do you have exacting science proving to that person wanting an incandescent bulb, that the light they will get from it is equivalent to the light you gain from your 23 watt bulb?
The simple truth is, Greg, that the federal government should not have the right, nor ability, to impose rules upon a states intra-commerce. Ever. The Constitution states as much, particularly when coupled with the Federalist Papers to explain the ‘commerce clause’. Yes, it might be a small deal, but when freedoms and liberties are given up without any fight whatsoever, those who would take them from you are emboldened to take more and more control of your life.
Greg, is there some moral code that you use when you object to people using a 100 watt bulb yet you burn more electricty posting stupid shit on a website?
And why should I give a rat’s ass about future generations? Most of the kids nowdays are just cretons who think the world owes them something. Or haven’t you noticed the uptick in flash mob robberies? One can only hope that you liberals abort yourselves into obscurity.
I smoke, I drink on rare occassions and I drive a F250 diesel and none of that is any of the goverment’s business.
Texas imports 2/3 of the coal it uses to meet its demand for electricity from out of state: sixty-four million tons per year, at a cost of $1.91 billion per year. I suppose using 4 times the electricity for residential and commercial lighting will work out well for someone. The voters of Texas must approve of Rick Perry continuing that arrangement on indefinitely into future decades, or he wouldn’t be doing it.
@retire05, #5:
There is a moral dimension that has to do with a recognized obligation to look out for the Americans who come after us, but a big part of my objection is a matter of simple common sense. I hadn’t realized that was a rare commodity in Texas.
The Obamanation of Common Sense will soon be telling us what we eat, that we must live within walking distance of our work, that we wont have electric power after 11 PM, we wont have paper books, we will report for reeducation classes at least two nights a week, we will be a member of a union, we wont be able to have a drink, and we will all wear the same jump suits everyday because it is just common sense to an indoctrinated Marxist .
@Greg:
Is this not the craziest thing? Liberals don’t see anything immoral in killing babies (unless, of course, they are golden eagle babies), or in homosexual behavior with 100+ partners, or living off welfare for most of one’s life, but, using a 100W lightbulb….now, we need to consider the morality of that!
It is so hilarious, and yet, they believe this stuff.
@Greg:
Greg, while your statistics on imported coal to Texas may seem to help bolster your argument that people need to consider the future in what they do today, you fail to look at the details.
For example, the electrical usage for the typical residential building is from 9-10%. For commercial use, it’s typically around 25% or so, however, commercial buildings tend to use much higher wattage lighting appliances such as metal-halide bulbs(which are not incandescent bulbs, and are not affected by the federal phase-out regulations).
http://www.eia.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html
http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/08/breaking-down-building-energy-use.html
Now, that 9-10% figure for lighting in residential buildings comes from early in the 2000’s, or, prior to the big push for compact fluorescent bulbs. If one was to combine that electrical usage of both residential and commercial, it would still be above 20% overall, even if all residential lighting was of the compact fluorescent variety, simply due to the greater electrical usage by commercial buildings, and the higher percentage of electrical usage towards lighting that they have.
So, essentially, the amount of energy savings from incandescent to compact fluorescent bulbs is a very small fraction of the total, meaning out of that 64 million tons per year, it’s more likely that only 1.3 million tons or so of coal would be used to make up any sort of difference between the two types of lighting, and that’s only if everyone within the state was forced to switch back to incandescent bulbs. Their not required to, of course, as the legislation is only for the allowance of sales of that type of bulb, and at the consumer’s choice. Actually, that small figure in coal importation is likely to be eaten up by the influx of people into the state, and the growing state economy which is seeing growth in the business arena much higher than the average across the nation.
In short, that figure you linked means absolutely nothing, of and by itself. When coupled with facts about electrical usage, both residential and commercial, it means very little.
This is a pick “recognized obligation” that somehow free choice to use light bulbs requires a backassed notion “recognized obligation” which is nothing more then guilt tripping on people susceptible and vulnerable to being lead around by the nose. They try to build some corelation, in their make-believe minds, between light bulbs and coal powered electricity which is some unscientific guilt trip about Bad Ole Mister Coal. There are student scientists in laboratories worldwide that are testing means and methods to make greater coal usages more efficient. These actual scientists and engineers are not stupid TinkerBelle Liberals wanting instant gradification like two year old brats. They are serious students and scientists of geology and organic chemistry without the time or interest in fantacy blogging. If Greg is seriously concerned about his individuel contribution to “Global Warming-Climate Change” perhaps taking temperature of his lappie or desk-top might indicate that his own unit pushes out a lot of heat so perhaps he should turn the unit off and unplug it from the wall socket. Ironically, the insanity is everywhere, a similar suggestion is being broadcast on WEEI Radio using voice over from some high pitched girlie-guy telling listeners to the baseball game to “unplug the televisions when not in use to help save the planet”. The advertizer is a public utility. Ole adage, “When darkness dwells thieves come alive and thrive!”
@Gary Kukis, #8:
Some conservatives, on the other hand, hold that every human zygote has constitutional rights equal to those of any adult woman, and that it’s the proper place of government to actively deny women final authority over their own bodies in protection of those rights.
Ironically, they seem to lose interest in the welfare other people’s children beyond the point of assuring that they’re born, deeply resenting any public costs for their general welfare, health care, and education.
Maybe in this thread we should all stick to light bulbs.
@Greg:
Just some thoughts, Greg.
-The human zygote stage is most likely well past when a woman actually discovers she is pregnant. It generally lasts for around four days or so after conception until it cleaves and attaches itself to the uterus wall.
-I’d say the irony of liberals willing destruction upon human life at it’s most vulnerable stages while protesting the destruction of the life of plant and animals, to the point of zealotry, is much greater than any perceived irony of one being concerned that human life within a woman be given the right to life, while not feeling any responsibility towards raising that life as a child.
-And yes, we should stick to the lightbulb issue within this topic, however, Gary’s point is well-made, as you, yourself, brought up the morality issue within this topic.
What’s next on the morality crusade, Greg?
@Greg:
Now that you’ve begun to get your azz kicked on yet another thread, you wish to return to the original topic.
How convenient for you.
Greg, so what if Texas imports coal? At least, unlike Obama’s friend, Jeffrey Immelt of GE, we are buying coal from other Americans, not from the Chinese. Tell me, do you also have a problem with Texas exporting (to other Americans) most of the cotton, cattle and sheep raised in this country? Or do you have a problem with us exporting a good portion of the natural gas used in the U.S.?
But as always, with your intellectual dishonesty, you, and the greenweenie website you got that information from, use the term “import” as if we were buying coal from China.
So here’s the deal: since 47.7% of all our power plants use natural gas, and only 36.3% use coal, we seem to have enough natural gas to fuel all our power plants. We will use Texas natural gas to fuel Texas power plants. But in the process, we will no longer provide electricity to states as far away as California. They can just do without. And we keep our oil for our own use, since it is already refined here, driving down the cost in Texas and necessarily “skyrocketing” the cost of oil in other states. We will no longer ship natural gas to states like Illinois and New York, leaving them to shiver next winter. We will cease providing the nation with cotton for your jeans and beef for you hamburger or steak dinner. We will keep our wheat, corn, barley and oats so you can pretty much learn not to each cereal.
You see, Greg, we really don’t need the rest of the nation. You need us. Without Texas, and its agriculture, the nation will have a food shortage pretty quickly.
My only responsibility to the next generation is to make sure that people like you don’t turn us into a third world nation. Now, if you were really concerned about electricity usage, you would close down your computer and sit in the dark.
BTW, I noticed you have not mentioned what successful state you live in. Why is that?
You guys treat Greg like a red haired step child, too funny!
I would think that almost everyone in this thread would be all for nuclear power; but, what stops that? Environmental strangulation. The same people who think we need to change light bulbs.
Not to worry; they will eventually complain about solar power and wind power too. Right now, a smattering of them do, but soon, there will be great environmental movements even gainst renewable energy.
Terminology that deserves closer examination is the couplet “fossil fuel”, upon examination there is no substantive defination of these two words forged together to form a specific entity. We are repeatedly told, force fed, that “coal is a fossil fuel”, that oil/petroleum are “fossil fuels” and even natural gas is a fossil fuel and all fossil fuels are detrimental to Mother Gaia. Attemting to get scientific with the liberal mindset congers up even greater challenges. We are told that all fossil fuels are here and finite and. when used to burn they desolve, forever gone, into the environment with devastating pollutants. So the reasoning is to burn fossil fuels means to destroy the environment but there is no rational explanation of just what the is is regarding “fossil fuels”. To add to the guilt tripping there is life form dessimated by the needs to use coal, oil, and gas for heat, shelter, and transportation; consider this picture, a billion years ago Barney the happy in the field Brontausaurus gets snared and dies in a swamp and his body decomposes with other dinosaures and over eons of time dear ole Barney is transformed into a barrel of black goo that greedy capitalists use to refine into a fire water that ends up in your gastank. So because of Barney we have millions of one passenger automobiles clugging through traffic jams causing more damage to Mother Gaia; which, just because the modern life activity of hopping in the Chevy to get a six-pack of brewskies, destroys what’s left of Barney. This stupidity is not science; but, nonetheless, this is what emerges from liberal luddite laboratories of progressive “Save The Planet” thinking which is then broadcast into households by the MSM and indoctrinated at students in closed fixed audience classrooms.
@Gary Kukis:
Do you think maybe that Rand had it right, in Atlas Shrugged, that there are people in this world who, by their actions and views, are intent upon the destruction of not only themselves, but society in general?
Sure, if you ask them, they’d claim to be looking out for their survival. However, they would be lying to themselves. A man who strives to continue his own survival, looks at finding ways to do things, as well as then finding the easier way to do those things. He does so by engaging his mind, recognizing the problem, and figuring out, by his intelligence, how to accomplish his goal. Man’s entire existence has revolved around that. There are, however, leeches who’s survival actually depends upon those doing the thinking, because those leeches have never truly grasped the truth that man’s mind is the key to his survival, and they continually seek to abolish the achievements of the mind of man, even to the detriment of their own survival.
The current group of people in the movement of “environmentalism” are working exactly that same way. It is not the environment itself that they wish to protect. It’s the destruction of man within that environment that is their goal. And while they enjoy the comforts of their ac, their morning lattes’, their access to the net so that they can spread their gospel of destruction, their weekly meet at the local sushi bar, and all other amenities that life nowadays provides for them, their goal is the destruction of all of it, even at the expense of their own discomfort, and ultimately, survival.
As Rand says, when she writes John Galt’s speech, animals are born with instincts that further their survival. Man has no such instinct. All man has is his mind, which is used to learn that which he needs to, in order to survive, and to expand upon that knowledge, in order to make his survival easier. There are people in this world, though, whose goals are to destroy those achievements of man’s mind, and ultimately, their own survival.
Hi, John Galt,
Someday, I will have to read “Atlas Shrugged”!
I do believe what you wrote. However, I view this as a spiritual battle, where lies, distortions and falsehood are the weapons of Satan. If all mankind is destroyed, then the Bible and all that is in the Bible has to be false. Or, if a subset of man is destroyed–the Jews–then the Bible is false. So, man’s sin nature would be used against man himself.
We see a similar destructive pattern among, say, drug addicts or alcoholics, who willfully destroy their own lives, knowing, much of the time, that is what they are doing.
So, yes, I would agree with you and Ms. Rand.
@Gary Kukis:
It is, perhaps, the best book that I’ve ever read, and I’ve read thousands of them. I relate nearly daily, the current events happening in our country, and the world, to the events that happen within the book, and it was written over a half-century ago. Man’s freedom and liberty, particularly that of his intellect, is the prevailing theme amongst the book’s “good guys”, just as we, today, are discussing here on FA.
As for nuclear power, I wholeheartedly support the idea of more plants, even after the events in Japan. I am an ex-navy nuke for over ten years, so I know a little about the subject. Stupid, unfounded fear-mongering by the “environmentalists” have nearly derailed any possibility of a new nuclear plant being built, even when the overwhelming evidence shows that nuclear power is safe. One has to wonder how this world might be right now if not for those leeches on society.