Biden Admin Outlaws Incandescent Light Bulbs, Accelerating Transition to LEDs

Incandescent light bulbs are displayed at City Lights lighting store in San Francisco, Calif., on April 11, 2008. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Biden administration’s new light bulb rule came in full effect on Tuesday, marking another step toward limiting American households’ illuminating options to energy efficient, but more expensive, LED lights.

Under a U.S. Department of Energy rule finalized last April, the new minimum standard for light bulbs is set at 45 lumens—a measure of brightness—per watt. The rule applies to all “general service lamps,” a category that covers the majority of lighting found in a home, such as those screwed into table side lamps and ceiling fixtures.

Most traditional incandescent and halogen bulbs won’t make the cut. While it won’t be illegal to continue using bulbs that don’t meet the new threshold, manufacturers and retailers will no longer be allowed to make or sell them.

Certain specialty bulbs, including heat lamps, three-way bulbs, chandelier bulbs, refrigerator bulbs, and plant growing lights, are exempt from the change.

LED Versus Traditional

An incandescent bulb, as described in Thomas Edison’s 1870s patent, emits light by heating up a filament inside it. A fluorescent bulb, an earlier, more-efficient-at-the-time replacement for incandescent bulbs, creates light by sending an electrical discharge through an ionized gas.

Meanwhile, in an LED bulb, an electrical current passes through a microchip, illuminating the tiny light sources called light emitting diodes (LEDs) and generating visible light.

Unlike incandescent and fluorescent lights, LEDs emit their light and heat in one direction rather than all around. The directional nature allows them to use light and energy more efficiently for applications such as task lighting or recessed downlights, although it also means sophisticated engineering is needed to produce an LED bulb that shines light in all directions.

The average price tag of an LED light bulb ranges from $5 to $7, while incandescent bulbs typically cost about $2 to $3 each. But switching to LEDs appears to save money in the long run.

According to the Energy Department, LEDs use at least 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, and last 25 to 50 times longer.

“By raising energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs, we’re putting $3 billion back in the pockets of American consumers every year and substantially reducing domestic carbon emissions,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said last year when announcing the finalized rule.

A Path to LED Dominance

In a separate action last December, the Energy Department proposed to raise minimum energy efficiency standards for light bulbs to require them to produce more than 120 lumens per watt. This proposal is expected to be implemented in 2025.

Once implemented, the rule would effectively outlaw what’s known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), which meets the 45-lumens threshold but won’t reach the efficiency level of 120 lumens per watt. The elimination of CFLs would make LEDs the only option left for most Americans to illuminate their homes.

With that said, CFLs have already been banned in some states like California and Vermont, due to the fact that they contain mercury. Devices containing mercury are typically treated as hazardous waste, making their disposal complicated.

The Biden administration’s push for greater LED adoption, as with previous attempts to accelerate retirements of gas-powered kitchen appliances and cars, was mocked by those against government overreach.

“Without government, who would tell you what kind of light bulb you had to buy?” libertarian political activist Spike Cohen wrote on Twitter.

Light Bulb War: A Timeline

The wrangling over light bulbs and energy use goes back as far as 2007, when President George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), which establishes a series of energy management goals, including a new efficiency standards for household light bulbs. The final round of light bulb regulations outlined in the 2007 EISA was rolled out in 2014 by President Barack Obama, who promised to phase out all incandescent light bulbs on his campaign trial.

In 2019, President Donald Trump called off the Obama-era initiative for energy-efficient light bulbs, which would have pushed incandescent and halogen bulbs out of the U.S. market at the end of that year. The Trump Energy Department said at the time that the light bulb standards had been expanded by the previous administration “in a manner that is not consistent” with the best reading of the EISA.

In a speech to Republican lawmakers in Baltimore, Mr. Trump defended the decision to scrap the policy, saying that the light the incandescent bulb alternatives create don’t look good, and must be treated as “hazardous waste” if they break.

“What are we doing? It’s considered hazardous waste, but it’s many times more expensive and frankly the light is not as good,” he said, speaking of energy-efficient bulbs. “So we’re going to sell them, but we’re also going to sell incandescent bulbs. People are very happy about it. It’s amazing.”

The original EISA was co-authored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who called incandescent bulbs “obsolete and highly inefficient” for using the same 19th century legacy technology and celebrated the “common-sense, bipartisan approach” to “save energy as well as help foster the creation of new domestic manufacturing jobs.”

In 2011, Mr. Upton switched his position in a bid to win the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, promising his Republican colleagues, who saw the incandescent bulb ban as government overreach, to work to repeal the EISA standards. He retired this January, weeks after the Biden Energy Department proposed the 120-lumens-per-watt standard for household light bulbs.