Bright idea: lobbyists win light ban.

• Author: Weigel, David
• Position: Incandescent bulb ban

THE INCANDESCENT light bulb died on December 19. Its funeral was attended by House and Senate leaders, President George W. Bush, and several commemorative signing pens. When the president signed the 2007 energy bill (passed by a veto-proof majority), he approved a mandate that all light bulbs consume 25 percent less energy by the year 2012. That effectively bans the traditional, cheap incandescent bulb, allowing the expensive but longer-lasting and more efficient compact fluorescent bulb to take over the market.

One reason such a major change moved so smoothly through Congress was that industry lobbyists wanted it. More than 20 years ago Philips Electronics invented the compact fluorescent bulb, a corkscrew of tubes that generates light from electricity, gas, and mercury. (The concept originally came out of General Electric during the I973 energy crisis, but the company considered the product too expensive to produce.) In 2005 Philips started an aggressive campaign to market the bulbs as "green," just in time for the Democratic congressional...