Henry Waxman, Democrat from the left coast has new plans for an EPA bill floating through congress. If you like government running your life, you’ll love all the central planning mandates in this one. Did I mention it’s to prevent global warming?
New homes “with slanted roofs,” for instance, will be required to meet a “solar reflectance” standard if they use “fiberglass asphalt-shingle roofing.” We’re not sure what that means either, but we do know that everything in homes will also face new efficiency regulations — including furnaces, laundry machines, dishwashers, “showerheads, faucets, water closets, and urinals,” even (or especially?) jacuzzis.
One of the more revealing sections focuses on products “intended for a general service or general illumination application” — i.e., lights. This isn’t surprising coming from the politicians who decided in 2007 that the public must be protected from the incandescent lightbulb, but it is excruciatingly detailed. By 2020, “the manufacture of any general service lamp that does not meet a minimum efficacy standard” will be prohibited. That includes fixtures “designed only to be mounted directly to an art work and for the purpose of illuminating that art work.” But not “decorative lighting strings,” so Christmas trees will escape the lamp police. For now.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson probably won’t be conducting the raids personally, though we trust she’ll enjoy hearing war stories about busting up the “high-intensity discharge lamp” ring back at HQ.
On that score, as early as next week the EPA will classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clear-air laws, prompting a separate avalanche of new regulations. Mr. Waxman must be jealous, considering that the EPA staff wants to regulate — among literally everything that produces CO2 — “lawn and garden equipment” and “enteric fermentation” in livestock, otherwise known as flatulence.
The Obama Administration claims it is flirting with this “endangerment finding” and the economic havoc it would wreak only to force Congress into falling in line with its climate agenda. But if Democrats ever do get around to passing an anticarbon bill, Waxman-Markey is the going favorite, and so Americans should begin to understand the micromanagement over their daily lives that Congress has in store. All you have to do is read Mr. Waxman’s plan.
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