The State of the Union

Last night in her rebuttal to the President's State of the Union address, Michele Bachmann spoke about the government telling us what light bulbs to buy. You might have thought, "what a silly thing to say." Well, here is the story. I remember this from last year, and found the news item on the Washington Post web pages. Here is an excerpt from the article. Read it and you decide if Congresswoman Bachmann was being silly. (I have highlighted some passages in bold face.)

Light bulb factory closes; End of era for U.S. means more jobs overseas

Lights out for ordinary bulbs made in the U.S.

By Peter Whoriskey

Wednesday, September 8, 2010; 9:48 PM

WINCHESTER, VA. - The last major U.S. factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs will soon be closing. When it does, the remaining 200 workers at the Winchester, Va., plant, about 70 miles west of Washington, D.C., will lose their jobs, marking a small, sad exit for a product that began with Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.

…..

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences. Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

…..

"Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon," said Pat Doyle, 54, who has worked at the plant for 26 years. But "we've been sold out. First sold out by the government. Then sold out by GE. "

…..

In Obama's vision, the nation's mastery of new technology will create American manufacturing jobs.

"See, when folks lift up the hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines stamped "Made in America," Obama said in an Aug. 16 speech at a Wisconsin plant. "When new batteries to store solar power come off the line, I want to see printed on the side, "Made in America." When new technologies are developed and new industries are formed, I want them made right here in America. That's what we're fighting for."

….

Sales of the CFLs began slowly, but they spiked in 2006 and 2007, when federal and state government efforts promoted their use.

The Energy Department teamed with Disney to develop a public service announcement based on the Disney Pixar film "Ratatouille" to encourage the adoption of technologies such as CFLs. It was shown on CNN, HGTV and the Food Network.

Lawmakers in California and Nevada drafted legislation calling for higher efficiency standards for light bulbs. And in December 2007, Congress passed its new energy standards.

GE balked at the standards at first, knowing that they could impact their U.S. manufacturing. But the company also saw that with restrictions gaining momentum in more states and other countries, some kind of legislation was unavoidable. They decided to support the bill as long as it didn't amount to a ban on traditional incandescents, but instead simply set energy standards.

"We obviously pointed out to legislators that the impact of an outright ban would be an elimination of some manufacturing operations," said Earl Jones, senior counsel in government relations and regulatory compliance at the company. "But it was inevitable that some kind of legislation would be coming to the U.S."

…..

The company developed a plan to see what it would take to retrofit a plant that makes traditional incandescents into one that makes CFLs. Even with a $40 million investment and automation, the disparity in wages and other factors made it uneconomical. The new plant's CFLs would have cost about 50 percent more than those from China, GE officials said.

….

In announcing the plant closure here, GE said in a news release that "a variety of energy regulations," including those in the United States, "will soon make the familiar lighting products produced at the Winchester Plant obsolete."