The war against traditional bulbs

(Jeff Danziger)

Thank God the Republicans have taken back the U.S. House of Representatives, huh?  Rep. Joe Barton (TX), whom I've posted about before, is the ranking Republican in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in line for the chairmanship now that we've thrown the Democrats out.

Of course, Joe is famous for apologizing to BP after Barack Obama made them pay to clean up their oil spill in the gulf. According to Joe, it was a "tragedy of the first proportion" - not the oil spill, which was the biggest ever, but the fact that BP was required to pay for the cleanup.

As I noted before, he's also the guy who thought he'd "baffled" Energy Secretary - and Nobel Prize-winner - Steven Chu by asking him where oil came from. (I'm sure Chu was wondering what they taught in grade school down there in Texas.)  And Barton's solution to global warming is to sit in the shade.

But eager to get started turning our country around, Barton has a new crusade. He plans to defend the "traditional, incandescent light bulb" from the onslaught of those "little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones."

Here's TPM:

War on Obamacare wasn't the only one Barton declared before an audience at the Heritage Foundation today.

The ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and one of the men vying to be the next chair of the powerful panel when Republicans take over the House next year, Barton laid out his plan for, essentially, undoing most of what President Obama and Democrats accomplished in the past two years. He laid out the central fronts: the battle to repeal what he calls Obamacare, the fight against the EPA, backing the growing insurgency opposed to net neutrality regulations, taking on "environmental radicalism" and -- of course -- defending the "traditional, incandescent light bulb" against government regulators who want to replace it with what Barton called "the little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones."

I say thank God for Joe Barton, defending traditional American light bulbs from what are no doubt socialist, Muslim light bulbs. But does he go far enough? After all, our Founding Fathers didn't need light bulbs at all. If candles were good enough for them, what are we doing using electric light? Why isn't Joe standing up for candles? Don't tell me he's a... moderate!!!