WASHINGTON — Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy.
“I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses,” the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.
Obama said the new efficiency standards he was announcing for lamps would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving consumers up to $4 billion annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. home for 10 months, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 million cars a year, and eliminating the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.
The president also said he was speeding the delivery of $346 million in economic stimulus money to help improve energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buildings.
Republicans took issue with Obama’s pitch.
“Conservation is only half the equation. Even as we use less energy, we need to produce more of our own,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We have to admit there’s a gap between the clean, renewable fuel we want and the reliable energy we need.”
The White House added the event to the president’s schedule at the last minute, just three days after the House narrowly approved the first energy legislation designed to curb global warming following furious lobbying by White House advisers and personal pressure by the president himself. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–Are you getting tired of the government telling you what to do and how to live? They now set the rules for the banking and financial industry. They own GM and are in control of what kinds of cars will be produced in the future. They already destroyed the housing market.
There isn’t an area of our lives that the Federal Government isn’t poking their noses into. Whether it’s how much water in your toilet bowl, when and where you can smoke, or what kinds of light bulbs we can use.
People, we have to stop this loss of liberty somewhere. Lets make sure that the government doesn’t control our health care and have the final say over whether we live or die.
