 This week, on July 15th, Congress did not vote to repeal the law, Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, or H.R. 91, which will force Americans, starting October 2012, to buy Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs. In my last blog,
CFLs vs. LEDs and Incandescent Lights, back in February I had hoped that a light had been turned on in Congress by U.S. Representative Joe Barton, R-TX, who coauthored a Bill to repeal this new standard being forced on the American people. Barton stated, “People don’t want Congress dictating what light fixtures they can use. Traditional incandescent bulbs are cheap and reliable. Alternatives, including the most common replacement Compact Fluorescent Lights or CFLs, are more expensive and have serious health hazards — so why force them on the American people?”
Should consumers bear the economic and health costs of this legislation, all in the name of conserving energy? Is conserving energy 8 to 15% worth the inevitable dangers of having mercury bulbs in our home environment, not to mention the increased cost to our budgets to purchase these CFL bulbs? Let’s explore this ban how, learn how it got started, and why Congress HAS to vote to overturn it.
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Summary: So at the
end of the day, what has Congress and the Obama
administration left us with? After October, 2012, we
will now have a legal mandate to use more “energy
efficient” electric bulbs, most of them CFL bulbs, which
use almost as much electricity as their incandescent
counterparts when one includes being turned on and off
as a part of their life cycle; we will have access to
“new” bulbs which cost between 8 to 12 times as much as
our old incandescents; we will be able to buy the new
CFL bulbs which contain 4-5 milligrams of mercury, one
of the most hazardous substances on Earth to human
health, and which essentially requires the cleanup
efforts of a Haz-Mat team if they fall and are
accidentally broken; the CFL light bulbs must be
disposed of in an entirely special way to supposedly
prevent further contamination of our environment, the
same environment for which they were originally promoted
to “protect”; we will have new “energy efficient” bulbs,
which will now be mandated in order to “protect the
environment”, most of which will not be disposed of in
accordance with new disposal regulations, which will
eventually leak at least 30,000 pounds of poisonous
mercury into our environment on a yearly basis which
would ordinarily NOT be dumped into our environment; we
will also have two new, additional hazards associated
with the CFL bulbs: electromagnetic radiation pollution,
which causes headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness,
mental depression and confusion; and the other gift of
CFL bulbs, ultraviolet radiation, which causes skin
eruptions and possibly skin cancer and other cancers.
Under the Guise of safety we are being duped! We are
being “forced” to use these bulbs to “protect” our
environment but we will be destroying our environment
when we dispose of these bulbs! And what happens when
they break? Call the HazMat team! And what happens when
they are disposed of in our garbage cans? Are we to
think that the garbage company will bury each little CFL
bulbs in its own watertight metal coffin so that the
mercury inside doesn’t leak into our environment? And
even if they provided little coffins, how long would it
be before they deteriorate and contaminate our
environment?
A Call to Action: The
ultimate victim is Freedom itself, as this legislation
is nothing more than another nail in Freedom’s coffin.
But there is still Hope. If you feel strongly, as I do,
that the best products will emerge in a free market of
competing products, then notify your Congressman and
Senator and tell them, no even better, INSIST, that all
electrical lighting products remain available to
consumers, and let consumers decide upon the merits of
energy efficient replaceable light bulbs.
In a truly free society, the one both you and I have
been led to believe exists in the United States of
America, we should still be able to make this rational
choice for ourselves!
Michelle Markey,
Director, Safety Issues Publication, Inc.
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