FEBRUARY 16, 2011
Good riddance
Valentine's Day has come and gone, and I'm willing to bet my Godiva chocolates it was a lot less romantic this year thanks to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) in boudoirs. One of the many downsides to the curlycues is their inability to work on a dimmer switch (which leaves us with starkly-lit backsides).
That's why I'm delighted to learn a group called "Freedom Action" launched a national campaign last week to repeal the ban on incandescent light bulbs that was passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by a compliant President George W. Bush on that fateful day in 2007. The ban goes into effect on January 1, 2012.
The organization reminds us the chief sponsors of the ban were Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Rep. Upton is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where a hearing on the ban is to be heard. I was thrilled last December when I heard Upton had promised to repeal the ban, but that was a false report (it must have come from CNN).
A bill to repeal the ban has been introduced by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) and more are expected to follow this month or next. Yea. After all, the only reason incandescent bulbs were banned is they are slightly less efficient than CFLs. And look what we get in return. Mercury in the CFLs that will leech out from out landfills into our water supply. Are we nuts?
Speaking of bright moves, here's an idea that merits action: defunding the EPA. Now that the Environmental Protection Agency has gone rogue and is already doing an end run around Congress in its push to do by fiat what a cap and trade bill would do by law, the GOP needs to put the clamps on it.
As reported in the Washington Times, the EPA's emissions-permitting program went into effect on Jan. 2 with the goal of regulating greenhouse gases (to avoid "global warming"). By Jan. 7, the agency had already tried to squelch economic recovery and job creation by targeting the planned Nucor steel facility in St. James Parish, La., after approving Nucor's plan to implement good combustion practices last November.
Gov. Bobby Jindal had announced the Nucor facility would be "the first phase of a multiphase project that could create up to 1,250 direct jobs and $3.4 billion in capital investment, with an average salary for workers of $75,000, plus benefits." But the EPA doesn't give a fig.
So the plan is to simply cut off its funding. Simple. Effective. Without approval by the House of Representatives, the EPA has no budget. No budget; no power. Color us all pink if the GOP has the guts to cut.
More good news: Carol Browner, Former EPA chief under President Bill Clinton and current Climate Czarina for Barack Obama, resigned last month. For those who may have forgotten, she hid the fact she was former commissioner of Socialist International and was Al Gore's ghost writer for his fear-mongering book, "Earth in the Balance." Advising President Obama is a lady who wrote, along with Gore: "The internal combustion engine is a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we're ever again likely to encounter." Kind of scares the fuzz off your peaches, doesn't it?
There are those who believe Browner resigned to avoid testifying under oath to a House oversight committee after evidence emerged her office got caught doctoring a report to make it appear as if the administration's drill moratorium was approved by a panel of scientists. I'm one of them.
U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida and ... 
