Incandescent light bulbs infamously lose most of their energy in the form of heat — making them hot to the touch when lit. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
By KELSEY TAMBORRINO
07/27/2023 04:30 AM EDT
It’s lights out for the incandescent bulbs that people have known, changed and singed their hands on for 140 years.
The modern descendant of Thomas Edison’s most famous legacy is set to formally meet its demise in the U.S. at the end of this month, despite years of efforts by Republicans to extend its lifespan. As of Aug. 1, the Energy Department will fully enforce new efficiency regulations that the old bulbs can’t meet, effectively prohibiting their retail sale.
In their place, consumers can buy more efficient alternatives such as LED bulbs — which cost more upfront but may save consumers money in the long run.
“This is the end of the road for most incandescent bulbs,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a group that supports energy efficiency standards.
The quiet phaseout of household incandescents showcases the power of government regulations to push changes in the marketplace. But the process can take many years: Washington’s political and culture war over light bulbs stretches back to the George W. Bush administration, when Congress set the more stringent regulations into motion.
The endgame for old light bulbs came quietly — by early this year, lawmakers had mostly moved on to squabbling over gas stoves and other newer targets of the Energy Department’s efficiency efforts.
Over a decade ago, though, the light bulb issue shone bright for tea party conservatives and GOP presidential hopefuls, who accused Democrats of trying to limit consumers’ choices. Republican lawmakers even succeeded in passing legislation to block the Obama administration from carrying out the new efficiency standards — sometimes to the irritation of large light bulb manufacturers that had spent big bucks preparing for them.
“Light bulb efficiency standards became a symbol in some Republicans’ resistance to expansion of the regulatory state,” said Alex Flint, executive director for the conservative Alliance for Market Solutions. “But manufacturers’ recognition that there were better products and consumer tastes were changing made this much more complicated than some of the political debates.”
The fight zigged, then zagged: The Obama administration took action in its waning days to finalize the bulb efficiency requirements, only for former President Donald Trump — who once proclaimed energy-efficient bulbs made him “look orange” — to halt the move. But DOE pushed the rules to the finish line last year after President Joe Biden came into office with a climate agenda that includes a focus on energy efficiency measures.
DOE completed the action last April, but full enforcement of the rule is set to begin Aug. 1. The transition away from the inefficient bulbs has been underway for more than a year, as the department provided flexibility for manufacturers and retailers to comply with the new standard.
That fight may be settled, but the larger fight over energy efficiency standards is still looming. Republican lawmakers in recent months have continually derided the Biden administration’s efficiency actions on everything from more efficient stoves to laundry machines and dishwashers.
For example, the Energy Department is proposing new efficiency standards covering gas stoves as well as electric stoves and ovens. Advocates say the rule would save consumers money on natural gas and lessen a source of greenhouse gas pollution, but critics point to DOE estimates that only about half of gas stoves now in the market could meet the proposed standards — something they contend amounts to a de-facto ban.
“The light bulb rule going into effect this summer is just another example of the Biden administration’s tidal wave of regulatory burdens crashing down on American families,” said Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) in a statement to POLITICO.
Others following the debate remarked on the change in furor over light bulbs.
“I’m just struck by how different the temperature of the sort of overall atmosphere is around this now that it’s coming into force, whereas 11 years ago this was a really contentious and heated issue,” said Elizabeth Tate, associate partner in the U.S. practice at advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group and a former senior policy director at the Alliance to Save Energy.
The Biden Energy Department completed two efficiency rules last year that effectively phased out most halogen and incandescent light bulbs on the market. One of those rules codified a standard that light bulbs produce at least 45 lumens for every watt — in line with what Congress first mandated in 2007 — and the other rule expanded that standard to more common bulb types.
A lumen is the measure of brightness for a light bulb, while watts measure the power consumed. A typical 60-watt incandescent bulb produces about 800 lumens, according to the Energy Department, translating into about 13 lumens per watt.
The rules offer some exceptions, including for microwave lights, allowing some incandescent bulbs to stay on the shelves.
The department said it expects U.S. consumers to save nearly $3 billion on their annual utility bills resulting from the rules, which it says will also cut planet-warming carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over 30 years. That’s equivalent to the emissions generated by 28 million homes in one year.
The Energy Department also proposed a rule in December to hasten the transition toward LED bulbs, by raising the minimum lightbulb efficiency level from 45 to more than 120 lumens per watt.
Incandescent light bulbs infamously lose most of their energy in the form of heat — making them hot to the touch when lit and even allowing them to serve as the heating element for the first few decades of Easy-Bake Ovens.
DOE said it intends to seek the maximum civil penalty against manufacturers that knowingly distribute products that violate the standards. The department has previously issued civil penalties worth tens of thousands of dollars for companies violating its energy conservation standards.
The standards are “unusual,” deLaski said, given that the Energy Department typically regulates the manufacturing of products rather than their sale.
But the gradual transition away from incandescents, some efficiency advocates said, marks a success story of the combination of market dynamics, technology improvements, decreasing costs and policy support.
Because the enforcement of more stringent standards happened over a long period, it signaled to manufacturers that they should invest in more efficient technology. And in that time, cities and states also began enacting their own lighting efficiency standards.
Forty-seven percent of U.S. households reported using LED bulbs for most indoor lighting in 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration, up from only 4 percent in 2015.
“We’ve evolved now to a point where technology has caught up to where the regulations were trying to get to,” said Michael Weems, vice president of public policy at the American Lighting Association, a trade group.
“We lasted on Edison’s invention for a good 100 years,” Weems added. “That’s not who the lighting industry is anymore. We’re technology companies. Now, we’re focused on research [and] development design.”
Michael Vandenbergh, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School whose research focuses on environmental behavior and climate change, told POLITICO earlier this year that efficiency standards are largely popular with the public when they save money and can reduce environmental impacts.
He added that the swap of traditional light bulbs for more efficient technology represents a “great success story” across the political spectrum, because it started with a push from the government but was eventually supported by the market.
“People would be very upset today if you tried to ban LED light bulbs,” he said.
Still, GOP lawmakers argue that the light bulb standards are part of a larger, burdensome effort by the federal government to restrict consumers’ choices on lighting and appliances like washing machines, clothes dryers and refrigerators.
“I’m happy the Department of Energy is out here making sure that we can all save money because we’re too dumb to figure out how to do it ourselves,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) during a hearing last week on the Biden administration’s “regulatory assault” on home appliances.
Fallon, who chairs the Oversight Committee’s energy policy and regulatory affairs subcommittee, said the department “is flooding homes” with new energy efficiency standards for appliances, including the “reckless” transition to LED bulbs, which he contends will mean higher costs for Americans and reduce choice.
House GOP lawmakers recently passed legislation aimed at stopping the Energy Department from finishing a proposed efficiency regulation for gas stoves, arguing it was overreach by the Biden administration as part of a larger anti-fossil fuel agenda. That bill earned some Democratic support.
But Energy Department officials and Democrats argue that legislation approved by Congress required the department to issue its efficiency standards.
“The reality is the appliance standard programs have saved consumers and businesses billions of dollars,” said Oversight subcommittee ranking member Cori Bush (D-Mo.) last week. “Families and businesses have benefited for decades from more efficient gas stoves, laundry machines, dishwashers and light bulbs.”
Expect more fights like this one in the future as the U.S. shifts away from fossil fuels, Flint predicted.
“These debates over lightbulbs or stoves are going to continue as change to the energy economy,” Flint said. “They will happen at the scale of what power plants to build. They will happen at the scale of what light bulbs to install and everything in between. There is change coming in all aspects of our energy economy and there will be fights like this along the way.”
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