Edison’s device wins a one-year reprieve

It took two votes, but Republicans in the U.S. House saved the light bulb this week -- at least for a year.

Under an energy bill passed four years ago that set new efficiency standards for lighting devices, the traditional light bulb -- think Thomas Edison -- would have been effectively outlawed by 2012, to be replaced with more expensive fluorescent devices.

But the move in recent months was widely -- and correctly -- criticized as an example of the Nanny State run amok. Federal bureaucrats tell us what kind of toilets we may use and now they want to meddle in our light bulbs?

What's next?

"The federal government has no right to tell me what kind of light bulb to use at home," argued Rep. Michael Burgess, the Texas Republican who spearheaded the push to save the traditional bulb. "It is our right to choose."

This is, apparently, a radical notion today for many in our nation's capital.

Rep. Burgess at first failed to carry the day, however, when he could muster only 233 votes on Wednesday to repeal the standard, well below the two-thirds needed for victory as required under the procedural move he used to get the issue to the floor.

Two days later, though, he managed to attach the temporary, one-year reprieve on to an energy spending bill, which the House approved 219-196.

Environmentalists began squawking immediately, but nothing in Rep. Burgess' proposal prevents the manufacure and sale of the new, more energy-efficient bulbs. If consumers choose to buy them, fine. But that's precisely the point: Let the subsidy-free market -- not federal politicians and bureaucrats -- decide whether Edison's incandescent bulb should be permanently retired.

Next up: Forget this one-year extension and abolish the ban entirely.