Legislator wants state to make own incandescent light bulbs

PHOENIX -- A first-term lawmaker wants to keep the state burning bright with incandescent light bulbs long beyond 2014.
Legislation crafted by Rep. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, would exempt Arizona from a 1997 federal law that, for all intents and purposes, is likely to make traditional light bulbs go the way of oil lamps in 2014.
He said Congress gets away with such restrictions on the day-to-day life of Arizonans because the U.S. Constitution allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. So Antenori's answer is simple: We'll make our own incandescent bulbs for Arizonans to use.
Antenori said he's got nothing against the compact fluorescent lamps that are likely to take the place of incandescent bulbs. In fact, he said, his house is lighted with CFLs -- the exception being the bedroom.
"I got sick and tired of going outside when I thought I had black socks on, I had blue socks on,'' he said. And what he thought were khaki socks were actually brown.
"It was driving me nuts,'' he said.
The minor inconvenience of wearing the wrong color socks aside, Antenori said there are two big problems with CFLs.
First, they contain mercury. So toxic is the liquid metal that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a whole set of procedures homeowners should follow if one happens to break.
For example, first you're supposed to turn off the heat or air conditioning to keep the mercury from being pumped into the air. For the same reason you should not use a vacuum cleaner.
And brooms are off-limits because they just break the mercury droplets into smaller ones.
Instead, after scooping up the glass with a piece of cardboard and sticky tape to get the small pieces, you're supposed to use a damp paper towel or disposable wet wipe to get what's left -- and then put that into a glass jar or plastic bag.
And forget about throwing old ones in the trash. There's a whole protocol for disposing of them.
But Antenori said what really galls him is Congress believing it has the right to declare incandescent bulbs, a perfectly safe item, to be illegal.
"Is it the role of the federal government to tell people what kind of light bulbs they can have in their house?'' he asked. Antenori said it's that same logic that has mandated the use of low-flow toilets in the name of water conservation, no matter what homeowners really want.
"I just don't envision Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock and Patrick Henry saying, 'Give me light bulbs and low-flush toilets!' '' he said.
The key, he said, is undermining the congressional excuse of interstate commerce.
HB 2337, if it becomes law, would permit Arizonans to possess, install and use incandescent light bulbs as long as they were made in the state from basic materials already available here. The measure is set for a hearing Wednesday in the House Commerce Committee.
Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said Congress was justified in setting efficiency standards for light bulbs, just as it sets them for appliances and cars.
"A lot of the electricity we use goes into lighting,'' she said.
"Incandescent light bulbs are very inefficient, give off a lot of heat,'' Bahr continued. "That's not a particularly good thing in places in Arizona where you're probably trying to cool a lot of the time.''
Anyway, she said, that 1997 law doesn't specifically ban incandescent bulbs. Instead, it requires all light bulbs to be 25 to 30 percent more efficient by 2014 than they are today; that rises to 70 percent by 2020.
Bahr acknowledged, though, there is nothing commercially available today in an incandescent bulb that meets those standards.
As to the problems with CFLs, Bahr said companies are making alternatives with less mercury. And she said light-emitting diodes, now mostly popular in Christmas decorations and flashlights, hold out promise of one day being bright enough for everyday use.
Antenori has one more angle to sell the concept to his colleagues: He said it could create jobs as the manufacturers of incandescent bulbs, forced out of their home states elsewhere, relocate to Arizona. He said while there may not be enough demand for the bulbs here, this law would allow companies to make them in Arizona and export them overseas.
And, as it turns out, the state Department of Mines and Mineral Resources reports that Arizona does have tungsten deposits -- the metal used in the filament of those light bulbs.