Light touch: how smart regulation and technological innovation ruined a perfectly good conservative crusade against government.

• Author: Cohen, Rachel
• Position: TEN MILES SQUARE

If you've flipped on Fox News in the last few years, there's a pretty good chance you've seen a bunch of talking heads denouncing the federal government for taking away their light bulbs.

"The government is forcing me--taking my right to choose away from me," protested business anchor Stuart Varney about the phasing out of traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient varieties. Economist Ben Stein dubbed the government's action "raw, Bolshevik, Orwellian," while political commentator Fred Barnes promised "to hoard hundreds of the old-fashioned light bulbs." Other Fox voices complained about the "ugly" light quality of compact fluorescent bulbs, an alternative to incandescents, as well as their high cost and the fact that they contain mercury, a hazardous substance. "Your president is making me get rid of my incandescent light bulb," grumbled security consultant and Fox contributor Bo Dietl. "I gotta use those toxic-waste light bulbs; if they fall you need a friggin' hazmat suit to get at 'em!"

Spurring this agitation was the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (passed, by the way, with substantial GOP support and signed into law by George W. Bush). Among other things, the EISA established energy-efficiency light bulb standards that would go into effect in stages beginning in 2012. The regulations required that manufacturers produce light bulbs that are at least 25 percent more energy efficient than traditional incandescents, a standard that Thomas Edison's 135-year-old technology simply could not meet. Retailers would still be able to sell the incandescent light bulbs they had in stock, but eventually most consumers would be left to sift through alternative options.

The conservative attacks caught on not just with Fox viewers but with millions of nonpartisan Americans. Why? Because the primary alternative consumers initially had, compact fluorescents, really were awful. The pigtail-shaped contraptions cost three to ten times more than an equivalent incandescent bulb, emit a weird harsh glow, and break easily, not only releasing their small amounts of toxic materials but also undercutting the lasts-longer-than-traditional-bulbs arithmetic behind claims that they were an economic benefit to consumers. Even many latte-sipping urbanites reacted in horror. "I would, in a way, pay anything to avoid fluorescent," artist Laura Stein told the New York Times. "I can't stand them--I've always hated them and I will not use...