Congressmen Gerry Connolly (D-VA) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday to criticize Republicans for wasting time on a bill to repeal a non-existent ban on incandescent light bulbs, rather than focusing on avoiding a default on American debt, three overseas wars, a stagnating economy, and other serious concerns.  The House defeated the legislation when the House Republican leadership brought it the House floor under a suspension of the rules and it failed to garner a two-thirds majority vote. Connolly’s biting commentary on Republican inaction and the absurdity of the Bulb Act follows:

Statement of Congressman Gerald E. Connolly

BULB Act

U.S. House of Representatives

July 13, 2011

Mr. Speaker, we are two short weeks away from defaulting on American debt, which would devastate our economy and could plunge this country, if not the global economy, into a steep recession. 

We are engaged in three overseas wars as part of the broader struggle to defeat terrorism.  Century-old autocracies are crumbling in the Middle East.  Extreme drought is destroying farmers’ livelihoods across the Southeast, Texas, and Oklahoma, while floods of biblical proportions have inundated the upper Midwest.  Unprecedented tornadoes have killed hundreds of people in Missouri, Alabama and Virginia while the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets continues to accelerate. 

Meanwhile, our economy stagnates for lack of any new federal action to expedite growth.

In response to these existential threats at home and once in a lifetime opportunities for democracy abroad, the Republican leadership has brought to the floor a bill to repeal a non-existent ban on incandescent light bulbs, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bush. 

Connoisseurs of Internet hearsay are aware that Tea Party conspiracy theorists think President Obama is trying to outlaw the incandescent light bulb.  Cooler heads, such as representatives of every major light bulb manufacturer in America, from Philips to Johnson Controls, actually support the light bulb efficiency standards because they provide a competitive advantage for American manufacturers relative to Chinese competitors which produce shoddy, less efficient bulbs.  Who knew that the Tea Party contained so many Manchurian sympathizers who have hidden their proto-internationalist agenda beneath the folds of a Don’t Tread on Me flag?

As we have heard, those who would repeal the light bulb efficiency standards believe that we are “Taxed Enough Already.”  Apparently the lowest federal tax burden in a half century has left these zealots with extra disposable income, and they wish to spend it on inefficient light bulbs.  In fact, repeal of the light bulb standards would give Americans the liberty to spend $85 extra per year on light bulbs which produce no additional light.  It is hard to understand how ideologues in the House can suggest imposing $85 per year on their constituents in order to buy light bulbs which consume more electricity than necessary.

Those who are baffled by Republicans’ support for this new Anachronistic Incandescent Bulb Tax may want to refer to the legislative record of the House over the last seven months.  The Republican Party has deviated so far from its historic support for conservation that it now supports legislation which would allow air and water pollution with impunity.  The new Republican caucus supports legislation like the BULB Act, which retrogresses to the time of Edison and the invention of the incandescent light bulb.  These Republicans sound like flat-earthers, and they must really mean it when they call themselves originalists.

This entire situation would be hilarious but for the gravity of the threats our nation faces, from climate change to the debt puzzle, or the opportunities that we will forgo in the Middle East because this House is distracted by a paranoid attack on light bulbs.