Ed Markey: “I thank the gentleman from Indiana very much. I just rise to briefly talk about light bulbs, because I know it's a…”

“I thank the gentleman from Indiana very much. I just rise to briefly talk about light bulbs, because I know it's a subject of great interest to all of the Members, and I know that there is going to be an effort by some Republican Members later on tonight to repeal the new light bulb efficiency laws. And I just rise to do a little bit of an explanation of what has happened. Five years ago a law passed here on the floor of the House, and it became law. And that law said that these old light bulbs, these light bulbs that Thomas Alva Edison invented and people really love, they had to be made 28 percent more efficient in order to be sold in the United States. They really hadn't been made much more efficient. And a lot of people, they really love old light bulbs. They don't want their automobiles to look the same way they did 50 years ago. They don't want their television sets to look the same way they did 50 years, they don't want their cell phones to look the same way they did 15 years ago; but they really want their light bulbs to look the same, many people. And so here's what the American lighting industry did: Sylvania and General Electric, they make the same light bulb now. It gives off the same color, looks the same. Grandma had this light bulb in her house that gave off that warm glow that you remember from when you visited Grandma.…”