Main: State senator wants to ban incandescent bulbs

Excerpt from this article:

But there is sure to be strong opposition to the bill, including from General Electric Co.

The light bulb maker is developing a new generation of efficient incandescent bulbs, said Kim Freeman, a GE spokeswoman in Louisville, Ky.

By 2012, she said, GE will have an incandescent bulb that uses as little energy as the compact fluorescent bulbs sold today.

"We would oppose any legislation that would ban a particular technology," she said. "Giving consumers more choices is the appropriate approach."

The company supports the standards passed by Congress in December, according to Freeman. That law requires bulbs to be 25 percent to 30 percent more efficient starting in 2012.

Update: A related post from Coyote Blog is here.

Excerpt:

Read between the lines, and you see GE attempting to steer global warming legislation to its advantage. The last paragraph goes a long way to explaining GE's support of the last energy bill (with substantial light bulb legislation), which GE might have been expected to oppose. Because now we see that GE has a product sitting on the shelf ready for release that fits perfectly with the new mandate. Assuming competitors don't have such a technology yet, the energy bill is then NOT a regulation of GE's product that they reluctantly bow to, but a mandate that allows GE to keep doing business but trashes their competition. It is a market share acquisition law for GE. On the other hand, GE says a total ban would be bad, because it would force CF bulbs to the forefront, where GE trails its competitors. This is the cynical calculus of rent-seeking through regulation. And it is all worthless, because high efficiency bulbs are one of the things that so clearly pay for themselves that consumers will make the switch for themselves without government mandates.