I read this quote in this article at NPR:

“Congressional Republicans have stood up for American consumers’ being able to make the choice of what lighting products they wish to use,” said Frank McCaffrey, a commentator with the advocacy group Americans for Limited Government.

followed by this:

The association’s Joseph Higbee said its representatives would hook up two incandescents side by side — an old 100-watt bulb using argon gas and a new 72-watt bulb using halogen.

“And you can’t tell the difference. We wanted to make sure every congressman and congresswoman understood that they and their constituents would still be able to purchase an incandescent light bulb,” Higbee said.

The association’s member companies long ago started changing their product lines from traditional incandescents to halogens, compact fluorescents and LEDs, Higbee said.

“Delaying enforcement undermines those investments and creates regulatory uncertainty,” he said.

Well, politics isn’t really dull but it can be silly. The question of lighting is pretty simple as a matter of quantitative reasoning: if I was offered a choice between an incandescent and equivalent LED at 1000 hours and 40,000 hours life respectively as a choice and the LED’s cost was, say, 4 or 5 times more expensive, which would I choose?