LET THERE BE LIGHT.  Just don't let it be the wrong kind of light.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sums up the paternalist view very concisely. Opposing a House bill to repeal the 2007 federal law that effectively outlaws incandescent light bulbs, Chu says:

We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.

Exactly. The government wants to take away our choice. It wants to take away our right to make our own decision. It doesn’t trust us to make our own choices. And why should it? Secretary Chu won the Nobel prize in physics. He’s obviously smarter than we are.

Debt ceiling negotiations or no, elastic interpretation of the War Powers Act or no, that repeal bill is in committee.  Ideological lines are being drawn.  Amid the noise, however, comes an answer to a Cold Spring Shops question.

In the absence of repeal, consumers are stockpiling 100 watt lightbulbs. (Must check on something. Cold Spring Shops headquarters uses the 90 watt energy saver version, except in ceiling fittings that have the fluorescents.  Are the 90 watters also going to be banned?)

The good news is that advanced-technology Edison bulbs are not banned, and this post shows bulbs that offer the lighting of the 100 watt bulb drawing 72 watts.  Now to do some comparison shopping.

All the same, if the first cost of the 72 watt version is competitive with the standard 100 watt bulb, and the operating cost is lower, does it really require an Act of Congress to get people to change a lightbulb?