Lovers of absurdity, take heart! The Great Lightbulb Wars of 2011 aren't over! You might have thought that we had seen the end of it, when House GOP leadership decided to spend precious time this week not figuring out how to create jobs, but on Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) bill to drag us back in time to when we all proudly wasted tons of energy with inefficient sources of light.
He lost.
But never fear, the battle continues.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) on Wednesday filed an amendment to the Energy and Water spending bill that would prohibit the Energy Department from requiring traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient. [...]
Burgess has not been promised a vote on his amendment yet, though Barton and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton are fine with it, and most spending bill amendments have been allowed under an open rule. In fact, Burgess said Republican staff on the energy panel approached him about possibly offering a spending bill amendment.[...]
Burgess said he has fought the efficiency standards from the beginning.
"I was the guy in 2007 who fought this on the subcommittee," he said of language included in a broader energy bill that was signed into law that year. "I didn’t get a lot of help. There was no one really willing to fight this fight."
What a claim to fame. "Progress? I fought it single-handedly." Pure comedy, if it wasn't so emblematic of the people in control of the House of Representatives. And, of course, the people who bought them.