A serious crime in the Biden Administration is the sale of incandescent light bulbs, the sale of which is now illegal.

The Biden administration has enacted a regulation that places retailer or online seller offering incandescent light bulbs for sale subject to severe punishment under the full enforcement of the federal government.

The crackdown on Thomas Edison’s familiar light bulb has been in the works for a long time. It started with provisions tucked into the big 2007 energy bill signed into law by then-President George Bush. These provisions created energy efficiency standards for residential lighting that incandescent bulbs would have great difficulty achieving.  The regulations were designed to get progressively more stringent in the ensuing years.

At the time, many environmental activists and some advantage-seeking light bulb manufacturers were aggressively pushing compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) as the green alternative. But those twisty CFL bulbs, with their high price and harsh glare, proved very unpopular with consumers – a backlash not unlike the one seen early this year after a Biden administration official suggested banning gas stoves.  Nonetheless the Obama administration Department of Energy (DOE), in its waning days in January 2017, finalized rules accelerating the demise of incandescent bulbs.

Governor Greg Gianforte recently opposed a proposed resource management plan amendment offered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that would restrict responsible coal production in Montana.

“Affordable power generated by coal keeps the lights on in Montana and fuels manufacturing across the country and world,” Gov. Gianforte said. “I’m urging the Biden administration to scrap its plan that would undermine coal production in eastern Montana, eliminate a source of funding for our public schools, and destabilize our energy grid.”

Last week, the governor submitted a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning and other agency officials as part of the public comment process for BLM’s Miles City Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement/Resource Management Plan Amendment.

The BLM is currently contemplating changes to its coal screening process that would nearly block all coal reserves in Montana from production.

Revenues from coal reserves on state trust lands fund schools and other public institutions in Montana.

By Brett Rowland, The Center Square

A congressional watchdog repeatedly warned lawmakers about national spending and debt levels before a second of the Big Three credit rating agencies dropped the United States government’s credit rating down a notch.

Fitch Ratings made the decision recently to downgrade the government’s credit rating from the highest level of AAA down one tier to AA+. Fitch pointed to the U.S. government’s high national debt and deficits and an “erosion of governance.”

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” according to credit-rating agency. “The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management. In addition, the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process. These factors, along with several economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives, have contributed to successive debt increases over the last decade. Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.”

After the announcement from Fitch, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the downgrade was “arbitrary and based on outdated data.” In 2011, S&P Rating dropped the U.S. government’s credit rating one notch. Moody’s is the only one of the Big Three that has kept the U.S. credit rating at the top level of AAA. 

But the federal government’s own agencies have repeatedly raised concerns about federal spending and debt.

In February, the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s audit of the federal government’s financial statements found it “continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal path.”

“The growing debt is a consequence of borrowing to finance increasingly large annual budget deficits,” according to the report. “GAO projects that spending for Social Security, federal health care programs, and all other federal program spending increases more than revenue, resulting in the primary deficit; and net interest spending, which primarily represents the federal government’s cost to service its debt, steadily increases over the next 30 years, further widening the total budget deficits.”

The International Monetary Fund listed the United States’ debt as a percentage of GDP at 106% in 2021. Countries with high debt-to-GDP figures in 2021 included Cyprus (142.82%), Italy (146.55%), Singapore (163.89%), Eritrea (176.25%), Sudan (181.97%), Greece (212.4%) and Japan (221.32%). 

Still in the philosophy that they should be able to control what kind of kitchen stove American citizens can use, The Department of Energy is maintaining a grip on gas cooktops regulation, although loosening them somewhat following loud public outcry.

Ostensibly in the name of energy-efficiency, DOE published efficiency requirements for gas stoves so stringent that they would have been impractical for most consumers. Following strong public push-back, the agency is slightly loosening the BTU limits after reviewing data submitted by a trade association and a utility company,

Much of the media denounced concerns from the public about the government banning gas stoves, calling them conspiracy theorists, but the agency did publish a notice calling for new regulations which would have limited BTU consumption to 1,204, down from a baseline of 1,775 British thermal units, or kBtu per year. The proposal is so impractical that for all purposes it outlaws the stoves.

More recently, in a notice of data availability published in the Federal Register, DOE floated less stringent efficiency requirements for gas stoves, increasing them slightly to a limit of 1,343 kBtu per year, down from a recalculated baseline of 1,900 kBtu per year.

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers and PG&E provided the DOE with data on cooktops with higher consumption rates, which the agency had not used in its initial efficiency testing.

According to POLITICO, “Other comments led DOE ‘to better understand’ what features consumers want in a gas stove, including multiple high input rate burners and continuous cast-iron grates.” 

Manufacturers would be required to spend more than $2.5 billion to comply with the originally proposed rules, according to the DOE’s own estimates, and consumers would save just 12.5 cents a month in energy costs.

The mandates would have been so strict as to make 96 percent of gas stoves on the market noncompliant.

In June the House passed the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, which would prevent the DOE from advancing its unworkable stove requirements.

The National Association of Manufacturers has held high-level discussions with policymakers on the importance of feasibility, affordability and consumer choice in rulemaking.

To that end, in June the NAM and members of the NAM’s Council of Manufacturing Associations and Conference of State Manufacturers Associations created the Manufacturers for Sensible Regulations, which aims to combat the recent regulatory onslaught by federal agencies.

“Manufacturers depend on regulatory clarity and certainty,” said NAM Managing Vice President of Policy Chris Netram. Throughout the year, the Department of Energy has proposed an unprecedented slew of regulations, and many were aimed at home appliances. The DOE is now taking steps toward a solution that is less likely to raise production costs significantly for manufacturers, and less likely to reduce the available features, performance and affordability for consumers.”