Congress to bar enforcement of light-bulb phaseout

Congress' budget deal tries to thwart the federal phaseout of inefficient light bulbs and to expand financing of coal-fired power plants abroad.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill, which covers all federal agencies and is expected to pass the House and Senate this week, bars the Department of Energy from spending money to enforce federal rules that set tougher efficiency standards for light bulbs. Such a measure has been attached to prior budget deals as well.

The ban takes aim at a bipartisan 2007 law, signed by President Bush, that phases out the most commonly used Thomas Edison incandescents, which waste 90% of their energy as heat rather than light.

This phaseout -- begun in January 2012 with the 100-watt, followed by the 75-watt last year and the 60-watt and 40-watt this month -- has angered many Americans who dislike newer bulbs partly because of their higher up-front costs. House Republicans have tried but failed to stop the phaseout so they've focused instead on de-funding its enforcement.

In announcing the new budget deal, Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, called the light-bulb-efficiency standard "onerous" and welcomed the enforcement ban.

Critics, including environmentalists and many in the lighting industry, say the ban is a nuisance but won't likely stop the shift toward more energy-efficient bulbs such as CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) and LEDs (light emitting diodes), which are up to 90% more efficient.

"The market has marched forward despite this rider," says Franz Matzner, associate director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "The manufacturers have all been saying -- we're going to comply anyway."

Yet Matzner says the ban should be eliminated, because it can create a loophole for illegal imports of the old incandescents and doesn't allow DOE to help U.S. companies meet the new standards. The phaseout doesn't stop stores from selling remaining stock of t! he old bulbs but bars them from making or importing them.

On the pro-environment side, the pending budget bill slightly increases funding -- compared to a December agreement -- for the Environmental Protection Agency. It also does not include a conservative-led effort to stop EPA's proposed rules for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants..

Yet it aims to weaken restrictions on U.S. financing for overseas coal power plants. It includes a measure that bars the Export-Import Bank -- the nation's export credit agency -- "from blocking coal and other power-generation projects, which will increase exports of U.S. goods or services."

The bank, an independent federal agency that is self-funding from fees it collects, provides loans and loan guarantees for the construction of coal-fired power plants that are built partly with U.S.-made goods such as steam turbines. In the last decade, it's helped finance two coal-fired power plants -- one in India and one in South Africa.

In December, the bank's board of directors voted to end its funding of these plants except in limited cases when they serve the least developed countries or contain technology that capture carbon emissions.

The bill's provision "slightly expands the number of countries that would be considered among the poorest in the world," says bank spokesman Phil Cogan, noting it adds 15 nations including India and Vietnam.

Rogers says the provision is "critical" to coal and other U.S. industries."The nation's coal industry has taken a beating from the Obama Administration's War on Coal, which has cost thousands of jobs in my district alone," Rep. Rogers says in a statement.

Matzner says the policy measure runs counter to President Obama's efforts to tackle climate change and should not be added to an omnibus spending bill that allows no time for debate.