Trump Administration Flips Switch On Energy Efficient Light Bulbs

If it's been a few years since you shopped for a light bulb you might find yourself confused. Those controversial curly-cue ones that were cutting edge not that long ago? Gone. (Or harder to find.) Thanks to a 2007 law signed by President George W. Bush, shelves these days are largely stocked with LED bulbs that look more like the traditional pear-shaped incandescent version, but use just one-fifth the energy.

A second wave of light bulb changes was set to happen. But now the Trump administration wants to undo an Obama-era regulation designed to make a wide array of specialty light bulbs more energy efficient.

At issue here are bulbs like decorative globes used in bathrooms, reflectors in recessed lighting, candle-shaped lights and three-way light bulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council says that, collectively, these account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, nearly half the conventional sockets in use in the U.S.

A senseless rollback or an unlawful rule?

At the very end of the Obama administration the Department of Energy decided these specialty bulbs should also be subject to efficiency requirements under the 2007 law. The lighting industry objected and sued to overturn the decision.