Slashdot Mirror
Trump Administration Dims Rule On Energy Efficient Lightbulbs (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If it's been a few years since you shopped for a lightbulb, you might find yourself confused. Those controversial curly-cue ones that were cutting edge not that long ago? Gone. (Or harder to find.) Thanks to a 2007 law signed by President George W. Bush, shelves these days are largely stocked with LED bulbs that look more like the traditional pear-shaped incandescent version but use just one-fifth the energy. A second wave of lightbulb changes was set to happen. But now the Trump administration wants to undo an Obama-era regulation designed to make a wide array of specialty lightbulbs more energy efficient.
At issue here are bulbs such as decorative globes used in bathrooms, reflectors in recessed lighting, candle-shaped lights and three-way lightbulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council says that, collectively, these account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, nearly half the conventional sockets in use in the U.S. At the very end of the Obama administration, the Department of Energy decided these specialty bulbs should also be subject to efficiency requirements under the 2007 law. The lighting industry objected and sued to overturn the decision. [...] NEMA argued that Congress never intended for the law to apply to all these other lightbulbs. After President Trump took office the Energy Department agreed and proposed to reverse the agency's previous decision. Critics say if the reversal is finalized it will mean higher energy bills for consumers and more pollution.
At issue here are bulbs such as decorative globes used in bathrooms, reflectors in recessed lighting, candle-shaped lights and three-way lightbulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council says that, collectively, these account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, nearly half the conventional sockets in use in the U.S. At the very end of the Obama administration, the Department of Energy decided these specialty bulbs should also be subject to efficiency requirements under the 2007 law. The lighting industry objected and sued to overturn the decision. [...] NEMA argued that Congress never intended for the law to apply to all these other lightbulbs. After President Trump took office the Energy Department agreed and proposed to reverse the agency's previous decision. Critics say if the reversal is finalized it will mean higher energy bills for consumers and more pollution.
Voting
Now we're going to have to generate about 25 large coal-burning power plants' worth of extra electricity if this rollback goes through
They assume everybody is going to remove the LED lights, and replace them with incandescents ?
Many specialty bulbs are very odd shapes. CFL and LED lights are difficult to fit into these shapes, and end up being highly unreliable. For what the special nature of these bulbs, the conventional style works more reliably.
Why is legislation defined as automatically meaning higher energy bills and more pollution? Aren't people free to buy the bulbs they want to buy? I have a whole bunch of candle-type LED bulbs; they're already on the market. I chose to buy them because of the energy savings of using them. Presumably, many more people will do the same. Regulation had nothing to do with my purchasing them.
Why should anybody care about what the government says about this when you can already make the choice yourself? Regulations don't "make a wide array of specialty light bulbs more efficient," the people who invented the specialty light bulbs do. Regulations just force people to do stuff (or not to do stuff).
I prefer it when people actually post what's happening in the headline instead of trying to use stupid puns.
Looks like the Trump admin is doing a lot of that. I guess it looks good to his base....
My whole house has been LED for years. I've had zero issues and only had to replace 1 bulb. That issue wasn't that the LED failed, but the smart components failed and I coudn't use the app to control it. My house is fairly large for this area and the power company sends us averages every month. I'm always well under the power usage of houses in my area. I don't see any issues with quality of light as they now sell LED bulbs in different spectrums or even with adjustable spectrum. The cost is nominal you can get 24 60W equivalent bulbs now for $22.
This legislation was a good thing. It pushed manufactures to find a way to lower costs on LED bulbs and brought lower consumption of electrical use. Why change it?
...to stop these people?
I honestly have no idea who you mean by "these people".
Do you mean:
1. Obamatards who imposed silly rules?
2. Trumptards who don't care about pollution?
3. Stupid consumers incapable of understand long vs short term costs?
4. Greedy light bulb companies wanting short-lifetime bulbs?
5. Slashdot editors who post silly articles?
6. Frist-posters?
Please clarify.
Voting
Which after this week and the fall out of the Mueller report and the spectacular flameout of AOC's "Green" new deal in the Senate soon to come is looking to be a pretty tall hill to climb.
Don't be too sure. Trump just put health care in play. I doubt he'll get votes by withdrawing protection for pre-existing conditions.
And although Trump may have been left unscathed by Mueller's probe, he is still facing lots of other legal issues.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
This argument might be persuasive if Trump hadn't just seized the power of the purse from Congress.
Just looking at a standard 60 watt replacement soft white Cree led light bulb, they have a 10 year 100% satisfaction guaranteed warranty https://creebulb.com/warranty/
They require a receipt to actually make a claim. How many people are going to bother to keep paperwork on every light bulb in their house for ten years?
Companies can offer extraordinarily long warranties when they can be reasonably confident that only a small proportion of customers will go to the trouble of making a claim.
The OP is wrong in that they don't need the MTBF to be as low as for incandescents (since LED bulbs still cost quite a bit more than incandescents), but anyone who believes that it's going to be ten years is living in a fantasy world.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
"The burden of proof of safety are on those introducing the novelty."
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
The burden of proof is is on Jack Kruse who is making these claims. If he'd proven his claim then there would be a burden on the manufacturer to prove their product is safe.
"When unsure, defaulting to Nature may be the safer bet."
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-nature
Nature is a set of random outcomes. Being natural confers no tendency to be better, safer, or to have better outcomes. Also, humans are natural and the electrical properties exploited to produce LED lighting is also natural. The most natural light would be sunlight, which burns you and damages your DNA, causing aging and cancer.
As others have said, I'm going to point out that most of what you said is outright garbage.
I'm also going to point out that due to the way the Senate in the US is laid out, the members in the Senate likely do not represent the will of the populace as accurately as they should. Your final paragraph -- especially, "they are even more the voice of the people" is a bunch of bullshit.
California and New York are large. Between them they get four senators. Combined, they are 8 times the size of Kentucky and Kansas, who also get 4 senators between them. And let's remember the House, which has been gerrymandered to fuck and back in certain states, like North Carolina, where despite losing with a vote of something like 41% to 59%, Republicans still got over half the representatives. How fucked up is that?
No, I'd argue both houses of Congress do not represent the will of the people. My last piece of evidence? Several polls have stated over 80% of the US population wants the Mueller report released. One senator from Kentucky denied it. And 50 other senators, who could kick that asshole out, remain silent. I believe it requires less than 30 of them to replace him as Senate Majority Leader.
Half of the Senate, which clearly does not represent half of the US population, is holding the majority of the US population hostage by refusing to do anything. Blame rests on Mitch McConnell for being a complicit twat, but more blame rests on those silent Republican senators for letting him get away with it.
Realize this -- I assume you already do and are just a troll -- and you will realize that no matter what Obama did, the Republican senators would simply do the opposite because their goal is not to legislate. Their goal is to give their donors money. Opposing the rule of the party, who still to some degree still rules in good faith, and convincing people to abandon them through fear and hate is one of their ways to stay in power so they can keep swimming in your money. Keep giving it to them. It's not yours, anyway, according to some of them.
How about the portmatards who like sticking "tard" on the end of words?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's pretty horrifying how many people are so deep into TDS, that they are willing to say "we should go back several centuries on progress on judicial system and adopt presumption of guilt", just to avoid having to face being wrong for two years.
That's also bullshit. Hear me out.
With the current setup, low-population states have more control over the Senate. This usually means more rural states. So, rural states have more power over urban states in one of the houses of congress. So, a minority of the US has control over the majority.
If we were to make the Senate work like the House, high-population states would have more control. Guess what? This flips, obviously. A majority of the US has control over the rest.
And guess what? In the past couple of elections, Republicans should have taken neither the presidency nor control of the House. You know why? That's exactly how the votes went. The US as a whole didn't want want the Republican party to take anything. Why should low-population states have control over the larger ones? If you make senators regional across state lines, there will be more senators for higher-population areas.
Should this really change? I refuse to answer that at this time. The problem isn't so much the setup of the senate. One party has been actively attacking the system for a long time and no one has noticed until the fat orange fuck in the White House.
And I ask: why does a minority of the US have control over a majority? This boils down to two problems: gerrymandering and a party corrupt enough to not give a fuck about the people who voted for them, that also seems to have a problem with allowing people to vote freely. As for gerrymandering, yep, both parties do it. Unfortunately, there's ample evidence pointing to Republicans going to all-out war with the concept. REDMAP is a thing. Google that. I mentioned 41-59. Or something. In North Carolina. A federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. Voter ID laws also fall under this same bullshit. A federal judge ruled that some of those "targeted African Americans with surgical precision" in I forget which state. Why does one party seem to want to prevent people from voting?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Why the fuck does this video exist? He's admitting that the less people vote, the more Republicans win. This is because the people least likely to vote are minorities. Because they become impoverished. Because they get sent to jail. Because voter ID laws target them. Because less polling places exist. Because wait times go up. Because they can't take off work to go vote. Because they can't afford to take a day off. Because they can't drive there themselves. Because the bus or other transportation costs too much. Quite simply, the Republican party doesn't want them to vote. I walked my ass into a polling place in November 2016 and didn't wait at all. I live in a good neighborhood. There were videos of lines down a fucking block. Eight hour waits. They shut down polling places for no good reason. The 2016 election set a participation record. It would have been even more astounding if Republicans weren't attacking voting rights.
If we solve the voting problems, one party will lose control for a long time. And it should, because it stopped representing the people a long fucking time ago.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." This is EXACTLY what is happening. The party is becoming irrelevant in the face of people recognizing the party is corrupt as fuck, is ignoring them, and the party at large is has abandoned the democratic process.
Do I sound pissed? You're damn right. Why the fuck is one party holding the country hostage when the people have clearly voted against it?