OAN’s Roy Francis
8:10 AM – Monday, August 1, 2023
The Biden Administration has begun enforcing its nationwide ban on certain types of lightbulbs on Tuesday.
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Moving forward, Americans will only be able to purchase light-emitting diodes (LED) which are more expensive than the traditional incandescent lightbulbs, due to Department of Energy (DOE) requirements. Americans will no longer be able to purchase incandescent and halogen lightbulbs, which made up around 30% of all lightbulb sales as recently as 2020.
According to the DOE, the switch to LEDs will save American consumer around $3 billion per year on utility bills moving forward. The DOE also claimed that the new regulations will cut carbon emissions by an estimated 222 million metric tons over the next three decades.
The Biden administration argued that LEDs will save the consumers money in the long run. However, LEDs are more expensive than their incandescent counterparts. The average cost of an LED lightbulb ranges from $5 to $7, while incandescent bulbs usually cost around $2 each.
According to surveys, LEDs are more popular among high income households. 54% of households in the United States that have an income more than $100,000 per year use LEDs, only 39% of household that have an income less than $20,000 used LEDs.
The ban is facing backlash from Republicans. Representative Andy Barr (R-Ky.) said that President Joe Biden is using his “weaponized federal agencies” to push far left policies.
“President Biden continues to push liberal fantasies through his weaponized federal agencies,” Barr said. “The Department of Energy should be focused on American energy independence, not on what lightbulbs you can or can’t purchase for your home or business.”
A coalition of free market and consumer groups who are opposed to the ban wrote a letter to the DOE in 2022, when the new regulations were first announced, saying that “further regulatory interference in the marketplace is unwarranted.” They added that the climate benefits that the DOE has used to back their decision are mostly “speculative, assumption-driven, and prone to bias.”
“We believe that further regulatory interference in the marketplace is unwarranted given that more energy efficient lighting choices, namely light-emitting diode bulbs, are already available for those consumers who prefer them over incandescent bulbs,” the letter read.
The ban went into effect on Tuesday. However, even though consumers will only be able to purchase LEDs moving forward, they will be still be able to use any kind of light bulbs that they currently own.
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