Connelly: House flips switch on the Tea Party dim bulbs

While embracing a cut-and-slash approach to America's environmental laws, the U.S. House of Representatives at least managed Tuesday to flip the switch on Congress' dimmest bulbs.

The chamber's ruling Republicans could not muster the two-thirds vote they needed to repeal energy-efficiency standards for new light bulbs signed into law by a Republican president, George W. Bush, just four years ago.

The 2007 legislation gradually phases out inefficient incandescent bulbs, saying that by next January, light-bulb manufacturers must produce bulbs that generate an equal amount of light but use less electricity. The estimated saving to America's electrical customers is a healthy $6 billion a year.

Nonetheless, the far right has gone incandescent, saying that this somehow amounts to an attack on personal liberties.

"With President Bachmann any American can buy any light bulb they want," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said to rousing applause at the Right Online conference. She charged that "a bureaucracy" is now dictating to Americans how to light their homes.

Rush Limbaugh has chimed in, declaring, "Let there be incandescent light and freedom: That's the American way." Glenn Beck has gone to his chalkboard in defense of Thomas Edison's wasteful creation.

The forces of darkness are, of course, lying. The 2007 law does not require us to buy squiggly fluorescent light bulbs, or any type of bulb.

"All Congress has done is set a national standard for how much power it takes to produce a certain amount of light," The Washington Post editorialized. "And there's good reason to demand improved efficiency; about 90 percent of the energy that traditional incandescent bulbs use is given off as heat, not light."

Manufacturers have responded to a reasonable phase-in, beginning with 100-way bulbs in January 2012, 75-watt bulbs a year later. Some incandescent bulbs now meet federal standards. "Consumers want energy efficient products and manufacturers want to sell them," Gene Karpinski, head of the League of Conservation Voters, said after Tuesday's vote.

But wasteful light bulbs became a cause celebre for the Tea Party. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., cosponsored the light-bulb efficiency language four years ago. Now, as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Upton has gone along with the mob and is supporting its repeal.

"We worked together in a bipartisan fashion a few years ago to give consumers cost saving options. This reversal by our friends on the other side of the aisle is very disappointing," Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., a member of Energy and Commerce, said on Tuesday.

The chief advocate of what he calls the "Save the Light Bulb" bill will ring a bell. It's Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who apologized to BP during last year's Gulf oil spill. He accused the Obama administration of a "shakedown" in persuading the oil giant to set up a fund to pay claims for the environmental disaster.

The new Republican majority in the House took office 190 days ago. It has spent time trying to take federal dollars away from Planned Parenthood family-planning clinics. It champions such causes as mining just outside Grand Canyon National Park. It's trying to gut the Clean Water Act whose positive impacts can be seen from Puget Sound bays to the Great Lakes to the Potomac River.

Above all, it has produced impasse, at a time when cooperation is needed to jump-start job creation. Yes, and to employ thousands of Americans in bringing new energy and energy-saving technologies online.

"Whatever it is, I'm against it! And even when you've changed it or condensed it, I'm against it," Groucho Marx said in Horse Feathers.

Is this what Americans want? The latest Gallup Poll, out Monday, found an approval rating of just 18 percent for the job Congress is doing. It comes from people asking, "What is Congress doing?" The "Save the Light Bulb" bill is a metaphor.