Front-loading washing machines meet federal standards more easily than top-loaders.
Because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads, they use less hot water and therefore less energy: But, as Americans are increasingly learning, front-loaders are expensive, often have mold problems, and don't let you toss in a wayward sock after they've started.

The culprit is the federal government's obsession with energy efficiency:
In their quiet destruction of a highly affordable, perfectly satisfactory appliance, washer standards demonstrate the harmfulness of the ever-growing body of efficiency mandates.
In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches "nearly as dirty as they were before washing." "For the first time in years," CR said, "we can't call any washer a Best Buy."
Contrast that with the magazine's 1996 report that, "given warm enough water and a good detergent, any washing machine will get clothes clean." Those were the good old days....
Newer types of [front-load and modified top-load] washers cost about twice as much as conventional top-loaders, but [in the 2007 test] they didn't clean as well as the 1996 models. The situation got so bad that the Competitive Enterprise Institute started a YouTube protest campaign, "Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary." With the click of a mouse, you could email your choice of virtual bloomers, boxers or Underoos to the Department of Energy. Several hundred Americans did so, but it wasn't enough to stop Congress from mandating even stronger standards a few months later.

Now Congress is at it once again.
On March 10 [2011], the Senate Energy Committee held hearings on a bill to make efficiency standards even more stringent.
The bill claims to implement "national consensus appliance agreements," but those in this consensus are the usual suspects:
politicians pushing feel-good generalities, bureaucrats seeking expanded powers, environmentalists with little regard for American pocketbooks, and industries that stand to profit from a de facto ban on low-priced appliances.
And there are green tax goodies for manufacturing high-efficiency models—the kind that already give so many tax credits to Whirlpool, for example, that the company will avoid paying taxes on its $619 million profit in 2010.

Amazingly, the consensus also includes so-called consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union.
At last week's hearing, the federation touted a survey supposedly showing overwhelming public support for higher efficiency standards. But not a single question in that survey suggested that these standards might compromise performance. Consumers Union, meanwhile, which publishes Consumer Reports, claims that "new washers can't be compared to old ones" — but that's belied by the very language in its articles.

We know that politics can be dirty.
Who'd have guessed how literal a truth this is?

The Federal Government is considering new energy efficiency mandates for icemakers.
Before starting down this path it should carefully examine the differences between the rosy promises and the real results from other household appliance efficiency standards that it has imposed.....
The savings from federally mandated energy efficiency standards for household appliances are often overstated. The Cato Institute found that U.S. energy efficiency standards will cost consumers up to $56 billion through 2050, excluding the government’s costs.
Energy-saving washing machines, for example, can initially cost twice as much as the machines they replace, but it is argued that they pay for themselves with lower utility bills. These “green” washers use up to 70 percent less water, but optimal results require a specially formulated [low sud] detergent, which can be more expensive. Even under the best conditions, the benefits are drastically overstated. According to Forbes, it could take an average of nine years to recover through energy savings the high price of an energy-efficient washing machine. Because the average lifespan of a machine is 12 years, by the time the consumer realizes savings, it is nearly time to buy a replacement.
The government that took away our light bulbs and our well-functioning high flow toilets now wants us to use icemakers that use less energy to freeze water. I fear the result will be higher prices for freezers that often don’t make fully solid ice – you may find water running out of your freezer or food spoiling. The government should stop dictating to consumers what products they buy and how much energy they use – The feds can’t get their own fiscal house in order, and they should certainly stay out of telling us how to run ours.

"The green stimulus packages being implemented to tackle the financial crisis in several countries all include investments in energy efficiency.....They may be a lot less effective at reducing energy use than expected because of the rebound effect."

"That is potentially important because it will lead to us over-estimating what certain policies will achieve" adds Steve Sorrell, a researcher at the UK Energy Research Centre and an energy policy expert at the University of Sussex.

Do CFLs actually reduce our consumption of electricity?
Even for this seemingly unquestionable claim, the answer isn’t clear...the town of Traer, Iowa, persuaded most of its residents to turn in their incandescent bulbs for free fluorescents. The results? Electricity use increased by nearly 10 percent. People figured that, because running the new lights was cheaper, they might as well keep them on longer.

2,601-3,300 lumen general service incandescent lamps:
Effective beginning with the first year that the reported annual sales rate demonstrates actual unit sales of 2,601-3,300 lumen general service incandescent lamps in the lumen range of 2,601 through 3,300 lumens (or, in the case of a modified spectrum, in the lumen range of 1,951 through 2,475 lumens) that achieve levels that are at least 100 percent higher than modeled unit sales for that same year, the Secretary shall impose—
`(i) a maximum 95-watt limitation on general service incandescent lamps in the lumen range of 2,601 through 3,300 lumens; and
`(ii) a requirement that those lamps be sold at retail only in a package containing 1 lamp.

"Delaying the date for compliance with Canada’s efficiency standards for general service lighting for 100/75/60/40W light bulbs (general service lamps) is required in order to strengthen communication activities, to allow for technological innovations and to consider the concerns expressed about the availability of compliant technologies and perceived health and mercury issues, including safe disposal for compact fluorescent lamps"

It's a strange world that bans safe-to-use products, when banning unsafe-to-use products was previously the norm.

It's a stranger world still, that here turns that idea on its head, so that it is the pushed replacement products that are questionably safe to use, while a safe product is banned.

More precisely, it is a ban on the simple safe versatile cheap quick responding bright broad-spectrum incandescent light bulb.

Why ban it then?

The political talk is as seen of enhancing the energy saving capability of a light bulb, of pushing manufacturers to make such better energy saving bulbs, to "everyone's advantage":

Forgetting that there is no free lunch,
that energy usage limitations compromise other characteristics,
usually increase price, and for many reasons do not give supposd savings.

And, as for the "stimulation of manufacturers to make better products"
that would instead arise out of increasing, not decreasing, competition,
and out of increasing, not decreasing, the variability of products on offer,
where a positive usage saving advantage can always be marketed with bulbs as it is with other products, as will be seen.
Overall, competition also delivers more - not less - energy savings than regulation does, as covered in a concluding essay.
Do politicians want to help consumers, or profit-seeking light-bulb manufacturing executives?
Because in "pushing manufacturers", why are the manufacturers so happy to be "pushed" by politicians who tell them what they can or can't make?

So why are the light bulbs being banned?

Because of their overwhelming popularity.
There is no point in banning an unpopular product.
There are no "Big Savings" from banning what people would not have bought anyway.

But should not the manufacturers be delighted to be selling popular bulbs?
No, not the major manufacturers:
Too easy to make and sell the cheap bulbs, for unwelcome local "upstarts" as it is for them.
Not so easy to make and sell the more profitable expensive bulbs, even when you get the cheapest Chinese labor you can to make them.
So if politicians wave funny bulbs around to show they are doing something to save the earth, the major manufacturers are not going to cry... on the way to the bank.

Again, as a decision supposedly "to save electricity" (ignoring the amount):
There is no foreseeable shortage of future electricity supply sources, that warrant a restriction on how the electricity can be used by those who pay for the electricity and how it is generated.
More and more electricity source alternatives, including emission free alternatives, are appearing.

Stranger still:
If there was a shortage, the price rise would make people use less electricity anyway.
More precisely, any shortage of finite fuel sources for electricity, such as coal, raises its price and reduces its use anyway.
Which also means what?
Which also means electricity saving products become more desirable to buy, just as more fuel efficient cars are sold when energy markets dictate it.
No need for regulations to achieve it, if and when such usage reduction is needed.

If there nevertheless is a problem, deal with the problem:
Light bulbs don't burn coal, and they don't release CO2 gas.
Power plants do.
Supposed savings are always given in 2020-2050 year terms, when more relevant and significant supply side changes can (and will) have taken place.

Stranger still:
The consumption savings are hardly there anyway, for many reasons, and even if they were, there are still other and better ways to reduce consumption.

Even if that was not true,
other lighting related policies (stimulated market competition, bulb taxation) not only increase the sales of energy efficient lighting at low prices, but competition in particular also promotes efficiency in a wider sense, while keeping choice for consumers.

But no!
Nearly all politicians, journalists, environmentalists agree!
The simple -overhelmingly popular- light bulb has to go!
Even the manufacturers, as seen, agree!
"Please pass laws that tell us what we can or can't make!"


Welcome to the mad world of the light bulb ban...

"We are not banning any light bulbs!
We are setting energy efficiency standards on them!
We stimulate manufacturers to make lights that save on electricity, and therefore:
We save energy for society,
We save money for consumers, and
We save CO2 emissions that helps save the planet!"

You can still use energy efficient varieties of incandescents that are similar to ordinary bulbs, like Halogens!
Good CFL and LED alternatives will be available!

During World War I, the War Industries Board was a government-authorized, industry-staffed effort engaged in industrial planning. General Electric executives such as Gerard Swope participated:
By so doing, and by watching Hoover in action in the sister agency, the Food Administration, they got the idea that by participating in such government authorized planning efforts, they could keep out competitors, control the market, and maximize their profits.

When Swope was named president of General Electric in 1922, he immediately set about applying those principles to the electrical lighting market.
Swope knew that the tungsten patent [vital to well-working light bulbs] would expire in 1927.
How was he going to maintain his monopoly?
In the free market, the only way to maintain continued dominance was to continue to innovate...

The Phoebus Cartel
In 1924, General Electric, along with several major European corporations, and with the implicit blessing of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, formed a cartel
- a cooperative group of competing firms who agreed to fix prices, share technology, establish production standards, and use common marketing practices.
By sharing incandescent light bulb patents that kept competitors out, and by agreeing on exclusive geographic spheres of influence, the member companies could maintain high market shares and high profits.
Called "The Phoebus Cartel" after the Swiss company Phoebus, they set out to keep track of all their activities around the world.

Under the agreement, General Electric got the United States, Associated Electrical Industries got the United Kingdom, Osram got Germany, Philips got Holland, and Tungsram got Eastern Europe. The European companies got to share the British overseas territories, and they all could compete in the rest of the world. General Electric was guaranteed that none of the other major manufacturers of incandescent light bulbs would enter the American market.
When the agreement began, General Electric had a 90 percent market share.
When it ended fifteen years later, General Electric still had a 90 percent market share.

Only a few dozen small, scrappy Japanese manufacturing companies dared to enter the American market and take on General Electric:
They ignored General Electric and related Phoebus Cartel patents, copied what they could, and shipped their less expensive, shorter-lasting incandescent bulbs into the United States. When they began to show some increase in sales, General Electric got its friends in Congress to slap a tariff on imported incandescent bulbs, and the price advantage disappeared. Japanese inroads were stopped.

When the cartel was first organized, the life span of the average bulb was 1,000 hours. Fifteen years later, when the cartel came to an end due to World War II, it remained the same.
This is not the kind of progress you would expect if the full engineering and research capabilities of General Electric had been tasked with expanding the life span.
Word in our family has always been that this was intentional:
Every 1,000 hours, you had to buy a new incandescent light bulb. Why expand the life span to 2,000 hours? You would just cut your sales in half...

In 1995, Mirabella challenged Philips world registered patent for compact fluorescent lamps. After long-drawn-out legal battles, including two appeals by Philips, the High Court ruled Philips’ patent to be invalid causing repercussions worldwide within the CFL manufacturing industry.

The German scientist and film-maker Professor Klaus Stanjek has an historical overview of the CFL push by manufacturers.
This was part of a general ecological impact assessment of CFLs made for Greenpeace Hamburg in Germany, so it is hardly research biased in favour of ordinary light bulbs (slightly condensed quotation):

"Fluorescent lamps have been subject to criticism ever since they were introduced in the 1930’s. Physicians, ergonomists and trade unionists repeatedly reported various forms of discomfort of employees who constantly had to work under fluorescent light: eyestrain, inflammations, headaches, and loss of performance.
The lighting industry have always rejected this criticism and continued the distribution of these lamps. In the 1980’s they even managed to put through the use of fluorescent lamps in residential use – without much objection by those affected.
Essentially this was accomplished on the basis of one single argument: the customers could save money. While the campaigns admitted that customers would pay much more per lamp, this would supposedly still be cheaper [in running costs] considering the lifetime and energy consumption of the lamps.
Campaigns also targeted the ecological conscience of customers.
Through a clever information strategy Osram and other lamp manufacturers convinced many newspapers and magazines to print their argumentation, and they gained the support of Stiftung Warentest [equivalent to “Which?”], “Globus” (a TV programme on environmental issues), the German Federal Environmental Agency, and even critical organisations such as the B.U.N.D. (German Association for the Preservation of the Environment and Nature). By now the ministries even prompt their administrative offices to install “energy saving lamps”. These fluorescent lamps were not even assessed by others than the manufacturers themselves."

Representatives of Philips and General Electric, two of the biggest lightbulb makers, say there's nothing to be concerned about.
And Larry Lauck of the American Lighting Association says, "I think everyone's pretty happy" with the new law.
But then, the lighting industry has no reason not to be:
People will need light, whatever the law says--according to Randy Moorehead of Philips, there are four billion standard-size (or "medium base") light sockets in America alone.

So if you're GE or Philips or Sylvania, the demise of the plain vanilla lightbulb is less a threat than an opportunity--an opportunity, in particular, to replace a product that you can sell for 50 cents with one that sells for $3 or more.
Yes, the $3 bulb lasts longer. Yes, it cuts your electricity bill.
Mr. Moorehead says that when every one of those four billion light sockets has an energy-saving bulb in it, the country will be saving $18 billion a year on its electric bill. That's $4.50 per bulb--and the bulb makers are standing by to make sure a substantial portion of those "savings" get transformed into profits for them.
Now it may be that those bulbs are worth more--because they last longer, etc. But some of those bulbs, like compact fluorescents and Philips' new "Halogena-IR" bulb, are already available. Currently they command all of 5% of the lightbulb market.
That means that, whatever value proposition GE and Philips are selling, consumers aren't buying. What we bulb buyers needed, it seemed, was a little nudge. Or, if you want to be cynical about it, the bulb business decided to migrate its customers to more-expensive--and presumably higher-margin--products by banning the low-cost competition.
"I was kind of involved at the very beginning" of this legislation, Mr. Moorehead says modestly.
Indeed, in December 2006, Philips announced a campaign to encourage governments all around the world to phase out low-cost bulbs by 2015.
What's remarkable about this bit of market interference is that there is, basically, nothing wrong with the present-day, Edison-style lightbulb.
It's not a lawn dart or a lead-painted toy or a magnet that will perforate your kid's intestines if he swallows it. It is what it is, and for most people in most applications, it was good enough. So the lightbulb makers and the environmentalists convinced Congress to ban them for no better reason than they believed everyone would be better off with something else.

Note that the lightbulb makers shouldn't need a ban to convince consumers to "upgrade." Microsoft, Dell, Apple and any number of other companies manage to convince the Joneses that they need a better "one"--whatever it is--every few years.
If Philips wanted a Halogena-IR bulb in every socket, it had only to put them on the market at a price that made them irresistible compared to the 50-cent bulb of yore. Likewise with the much hailed compact fluorescent. They have been on the market a good deal longer than Philips's fancy new incandescent. The prices have come down and the quality has gone up. But not, apparently, enough for 95% of the bulb-buying public.
A few years back, one could have argued with a straight face that consumer awareness of the benefits of CFLs was inadequate.
No more.
The sticking point lies at that ineffable nexus between price and quality--with all that "quality" implies, whether it be service life, the delay between flicking the switch and full power, or color temperature or the look of the thing.

There are billions to be made--and spent--figuring out how to get consumers to pay more for something.
This year Steve Jobs convinced a million people to pay $400 for a cell phone in a market in which many people believe that the phone should come free with a service contract.
But why worry about making a product so good people feel they have to have it, when you can instead get the government to tell them they have no choice?

Meanwhile the NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) Lamp Subcommittee was conducting its own research and internal hearings that culminated in a recommendation to ban the incandescent light bulb.

The NEMA Lamp Subcommittee was composed of General Electric, Osram Sylvania, and Phillips, the same industrial giants who formed the old Phoebus Cartel back in 1924.
When I asked NEMA for help in fighting the incandescent light ban, I was politely told that they could not be involved in any research program like that.
In April 2007, ahead of Congress hearings, NEMA then announced its support for energy efficient lighting policy...

In 2007, Philips urged an incandescent ban as a way to force the market toward high-efficiency bulbs, complaining that without such laws, "purchase price and functional performance often take precedence over environmental concern."

Why did GE, founded by Thomas Edison, support a bill that killed the traditional incandescent light bulb?
The company said in 2007 it wanted to make sure it was working under a single federal efficiency standard, rather than a patchwork of state regulations. GE also touts its compact fluorescents as one of the green products in its “eco-magination” initiative.
So, GE gets environmentalist brownie points for selling “clean” light bulbs, and they also get to charge more for their bulbs. But there’s another advantage—they save on labor with fluorescents, because they make the fluorescents in China.
Not only are wages lower there, but so are the regulatory burdens, both environmental and labor. The Times of London recently reported, “Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs.”

"The original version of this article stated that GE “lobbied to kill the incandescent bulb.”
This was imprecise. In 2007 GE opposed proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescents. Instead, the company advocated simply setting efficiency standards for all bulbs, regardless of what type of bulb. This had the known effect of outlawing all traditional incandescents, but leaving open the possibility of high-efficiency incandescents."

So some years ago, Philips formed a coalition with environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for higher standards.
“We felt that we needed to make a call, and show that the best-known lighting technology, the incandescent light bulb, is at the end of its lifetime,” says Harry Verhaar, the company’s head of strategic sustainability initiatives.

Philips told its environmental allies it was well positioned to capitalize on the transition to new technologies and wanted to get ahead of an efficiency movement that was gaining momentum abroad and in states like California. Other manufacturers were more wary, but they also understood the downside to selling a ubiquitous commodity:
the profit margin on a bulb that sells for a quarter is negligible. After much negotiation, the industry and environmental groups agreed to endorse tightening efficiency by 25 to 30 percent.

“It’s a different sale than we’re used to,” said Ed Crawford, a top executive in Philips’s lighting division. Over lunch at its corporate offices in Somerset, N.J., near Edison’s old lab, Crawford told me he started out with the Philips subsidiary Norelco, retailing electric razors. “The sale is really the same,” he said. You can buy a razor for a dollar that you can use to shave your face — or you can buy an appliance. An Ambient LED will last as long as an electric razor, and while that means Philips will be giving up many disposable-bulb sales, the comparatively high prices (and 20 to 30 percent margins) currently prevailing in the L.E.D. marketplace will make the tradeoff extremely profitable, at least in the short term....

President Obama on Monday was scheduled to give a pep talk for American manufacturing at a factory in Durham, N.C., where Cree Inc. makes LED light bulbs. Cree embodies Obama-era capitalism: profiting from government grants, political connections, revolving-door lobbyists and regulations that force people to buy your product.
From its 10-Q: "Historically, government agencies have funded a significant portion of our research and development activities. In addition, government agencies have purchased products directly from us and products from our customers for which we supply components."
Since 2001, Cree has received more than $78 million in federal grants, according to USASpending.gov, and more than $96 million in federal contracts. And overseas, the Chinese government is Cree's biggest customer. State and local governments also subsidize the company.
Company Vice President Greg Merritt spoke about the LED boom in April 2009 at a green-tech conference. "We are in a perfect storm in some respects," he said. After talking about new manufacturing efficiencies, Merritt added, "The political environment for sustainable technologies and energy efficiency is perhaps more favorable today than it's been for quite a while."
Merritt should know -- he and his colleagues helped shape that "political environment." Merritt lobbied Congress on the 2007 energy bill, "Specifically, provisions related to energy-efficient lighting." That is, Merritt and Cree's other lobbyists supported the law that will effectively outlaw the [much more popular] incandescent bulb, thus creating unwilling demand for their more expensive LED bulbs.
President Obama doesn't see this as the regulatory robbery it is.
He sees it as stimulus.
After all, the regulation has helped Cree hire new workers....
Well, except for the hundreds of former General Electric factory workers who used to make the old incandescents in factories in Winchester, Va., Niles, Ohio, and Lexington, Ky. Those factories closed last summer thanks to the same law that is benefitting Cree. (Don't cry for GE, though -- the company's lobbyists also supported the regulations, which will drive business to their more profitable fluorescents and LEDs.)

Another loser: the American consumer, who loses the freedom of choice...

With such great endorsement on the industrial side to a political program [that tells the manufacturers how they must manufacture], the suspicion is therefore gradually aroused if it might not also be the other way round:
The globally ruling industry wants a ban, since they have been unable to influence buyer behavior to their satisfaction, and politicians compliantly follow along...

UNEP en.lighten initiative:
Private sector and the UN in partnership to en.lighten the world [their words]
The UNEP en.lighten initiative was created in 2009 as a partnership between UNEP, Philips Lighting and OSRAM, with support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) [more on GEF follows].
The initiative addresses the challenge of accelerating global market transformation to environmentally sustainable lighting technologies by developing a global strategy in support of the gradual phase-out of inefficient lighting.

• the development of a global policy strategy to gradually eliminate inefficient and obsolete lighting products;
• the promotion of high performance and efficient lighting technologies in developing and emerging nations;
• the substitution of traditional fuel-based lighting with efficient alternatives.

The en.lighten initiative has created global taskforces where international experts from developing, emerging and developed countries and sectors are working on a global approach to phase out inefficient incandescent lamps.

"Market forces are not sufficient to achieve the rapid transformation needed in the lighting market to respond to the climate change challenge.
Instead, a multi-stakeholder global partnership is required to support countries as they embark upon efficient lighting transformation programmes.
As two of the biggest lighting manufacturers in the world, we have chosen to focus our efforts on transforming the lighting market in partnership with UNEP through its en.lighten initiative.
With its unparalleled global network, UNEP can provide leadership by inspiring and enabling nations to prioritise efficient lighting and reap the benefits of lowered energy costs."

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) unites 182 member governments — in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector — to address global environmental issues.
Established in 1991, the GEF is today the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment.

"CFL household saturation is still low throughout the United States, even in regions with successful and long-standing energy efficiency programs.... the residential sector contains 90 percent of CFL-appropriate sockets, but has only 11 percent CFL saturation. Thirty percent of households still own no CFLs, and 64 percent of households that own CFLs have five or fewer."