The REAL Reason Behind The Light Bulb Ban

I really should put Reason Magazine on my browser bookmarks. I almost missed this article about the controversial Light bulb ban.

On January 1st, the Canadian and US governments put into place a ban on 75 and 100 watt traditional light bulbs (the 40 and 60 watt bulbs will be phased out at the end of this year). At first it looked like this was a push by environmental groups to ban traditional light bulbs which were less energy efficient. But now, the secret is out. This light bulb ban has nothing to do with Environmentalism. It was crony Capitalism.

We are now finding out that some of the biggest light bulb manufactures like Philips, Sylvania and General Electric lobbied the government for this. In particular, Phillips paid environmental groups (like the national resources defence council) to pressure the government into banning traditional light bulbs.

Now, why would Philips, Sylvania and GE be in favour of a Light Bulb ban? Because traditional light bulbs don’t have very big profit margins. The Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL’s) are more expensive and most of the time, are made in china. They can make a bigger profit off the CFL’s.

Libertarians are pro business. There is nothing wrong with starting a business, becoming successful and maybe opening up a bunch of locations.  However, when these companies become so large that they have an influence over government policy, that’s when it becomes a problem. Contrary to popular belief, large companies often lobby the government to change regulations to give them an advantage. Regulations that their competitors won’t be able to keep up with or will prevent a new competitor from even starting up in the first place. This is not capitalism, this is crony capitalism. In the case of this bulb ban, Philips and GE were worried about an upstart competitor getting a huge contract with Wal-mart.

This was not about saving energy, saving the planet or sensible environmental policy winning out. Philips and GE knew that people wouldn’t buy the more expensive bulbs so they successfully got them banned. The CFL’s aren’t really that environmentally friendly either. It’s too bad we aren’t free to buy the light bulbs that we want. One of my basic fundamental beliefs is: You should be able to buy whatever you want from whoever wants to sell it to you. Now excuse me… I have to update my browser bookmarks.