Posted on 07/23/2011 7:27:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In what critics call a classic case of the government working at cross purposes, Washington is forcing residents across the country to install mercury lighting inside their homes while phasing out mercury lighting outside homes to protect the environment.
Yes, you read that right.
In 2005, Congress passed a law banning mercury vapor streetlights – two years before it banned incandescent light bulbs in favor of mercury vapor compact florescent bulbs.
Under the Energy Policy Act, signed by President Bush in August 2005, manufacturers cannot make or import ballasts for mercury vapor lights after Jan. 1, 2008. According to the act, mercury vapor security lights are being phased out to "protect the environment" and to "promote energy efficiency" in lighting.
Utility companies across the country have been replacing mercury vapor street lamps with high-pressure sodium fixtures or metal halide fixtures, which are twice as efficient as mercury vapor and possibly safer. The EPA classifies mercury as a hazardous material.
Yet the federal government is pushing consumers to replace traditional incandescent bulbs used in their homes with compact fluorescents containing toxic mercury vapor.
A former Energy Department official says there's a regulatory "disconnect" regarding mercury lighting.
"We're removing mercury from outside the home while adding it inside," he said. "It makes no sense."
In 2007 – two years after enacting the ban on outdoor mercury lighting – Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, also signed by Bush. It mandated the use of compact florescent lighting in U.S. homes by making incandescent bulbs a controlled substance and outlawing the 100-watt bulb by 2012, and all other wattages by 2014.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Bush’s fault.
Nanny State PING!
Maybe they should stop trying and let the consumers decide.
This consumer already decided.....to stock up on 100 watters.
Everything the government touches turns to shit.
Absolutely every single thing. Every time.
Overwhelm the system.
Bring it to it's knees and shoot it in the head, then say "See! See! We told you freedom and capitalism don't work!"
Cleaning up _4_ broken ones in an approximate 3 month time span gave me mild mercury poisoning last year.
[a blood level of “49” which is 10X the “safe amount”]
It was a *very* physically unpleasant 6 months until my levels came back down.
Think about that for a while.
Imagine how *little* it would take to poison a much smaller _child_.
Thanks nanny state hypocrites!
Bush the veto pussy.
Jerk wouldn’t veto anything. How many in EIGHT STINKING YEARS?
We’ve been saddled with so much socialist crap because the [insert a vulgar noun here] wouldn’t veto anything and he wouldn’t lead the party, except when he wanted amnesty for illegals.
IMO the only good thing about W was that he wasn’t Algore.
“It makes no sense.”
The definitive description of interfering government.
Follow the money, and I bet it makes perfect sense for someones bottom line - just not for policy.
We have very little logic behind policy anymore - just lobby money, and whatever policy they want at the moment.
At least they broke it outside where the PPM is nearly neglible.
I had one *explode* in the light socket in the laundry room, showering its happy little payload into my freshly washed basket of clothes.
Not knowing any better, I simply rewashed them and put them in the drier, thus spreading the mercury vapor and dust *everywhere*.
Brilliant of me, wasn’t it?
[there were no “haz-mat cleanup instructions” on the box]
Yes, we were drunk at the time, but I think I can see this happening these days.
Mark
I have to agree with you. Bush was a real letdown.
I just don’t understand the love affair with W.
>> Imagine how *little* it would take to poison a much smaller _child_.
Or a pet.
Wouldn’t it be something if pelosi, reid, obama and boner all got some mercury bulbs mailed to them? And they weren’t packed correctly? No padding or styrofoam peanuts to stop them from breaking during shipment? You know, as a protest? Would that be against the law? mmmm?
I'm shocked. /s
Government is not sense or reason. It is force.
Death to the evil toxic twisty bulbs!
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