The halogen retrofits may still feel new to many of us, but we might only have them for another four years.  The next tier of EISA 2007 is set to take effect on January 1st, 2020 and will require general service lamps to meet or exceed 45 lumens per watt.  However, there's still a chance that might change.  The Secretary of Energy can publish a new set of standards sometime before January 1, 2017.  Provided that happens then the backstop requirement of 45 lpw won't be triggered. 

There is another condition, and that is the final rule must result in savings "equal to the savings from a minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt."  At first I thought that meant lamps are going to be required to meet a minimum of 45 lpw in 2020 and that the rulemaking could only produce higher and not lower standards.  I don't think that is the case after all.  The new rules can set lower standards provided they make up for the difference in savings elsewhere.  So it has yet to be determined exactly what level of efficiency will be required or what exemptions will remain in place four years from now.

To complicate matters, the "Burgess Amendment" has prevented the Department of Energy from spending any money enacting the lighting efficiency requirements specified in EISA 2007.  If the DOE is unable to revise the current set of standards due to this prohibition of spending, they won't be able to enact lower standards that will prevent the 45 lpw fallback from going into effect.  They could stop it by making up for the difference elsewhere, but from what I've read that sounds unlikely to happen.  As a result, the legislation that was intended to allow incandescent bulbs to remain on the market might have the unintended consequence of prohibiting today's halogen replacements by activating the backstop.

Have any of you heard any other updates?

See more:
https://www.ase.org/blog/how-many-politicians-does-it-take-change-light-bulb
http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/150223_DOE-GSLstandards_comments.pdf

Full text of EISA 2007:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-110hr6enr/pdf/BILLS-110hr6enr.pdf

The government keeps getting crappier and crappier. I like the halogen retrofits, but the GE ones seem to last three yeers and slowly sputter and blacken.

The EU doing this as well. This isn't a thing unique to the US government. At 2017, all probe-start and pulse-start MH lamps will become illegal here. Only CMH and high xenon pressure HPS lamps will be the legal HID lamps.

Mercury vapour and probe Metal halide lamps I believe are banned in January here in Canada. Made sure I'm well stocked

The gov't regs should be scrapped-let the MARKETPLACE decide!!!And would be lower cost to everyone-and you have the choice of whatever light source that suits you.Since you or I pay our electric bills-the power you or I use shouldn't be concern to others.It isn't my business as far for me-My business is MY light bill.

The gov't regs should be scrapped-let the MARKETPLACE decide!!!And would be lower cost to everyone-and you have the choice of whatever light source that suits you.Since you or I pay our electric bills-the power you or I use shouldn't be concern to others.It isn't my business as far for me-My business is MY light bill.

^^^^^^^^ABSOLUTELY^^^^^^^^^^

I thought I lived in a free country. I guess not since I can't get any light bulb I want. The politicians seem to worry what light bulbs you should be using than gun control. The politicians NEED to get lost!!! It's only a LIGHT BULB it's not going to kill you.

The gov't regs should be scrapped-let the MARKETPLACE decide!!!And would be lower cost to everyone-and you have the choice of whatever light source that suits you.Since you or I pay our electric bills-the power you or I use shouldn't be concern to others.It isn't my business as far for me-My business is MY light bill.

This is because global warming (caused also by wasting energy) and, if you let market decide, market will go to the cheaper to buy, but non even the best buy.
For example, see Betamax and VHS: the first was the best choice (good image quality), but market decided for the second because lower cost.
Another example is diesel vs petrol engine: the first is (a lot) more efficient, but the second is cheaper.

Paintballer :
I think they should not be messing with anything

Speaking of gun control, it is a shame that no other western country other than US have gun rights like the US, and another shame that the Politicians are trying to take the guns in the US too

Politicians ride on the noise made by "gun control", "family safety" etc etc activists. The agendas of such organizations are against everything we consider good or normal. While the truth is, that guns were essential to establish all the free countries in the western world - including Europe and others, and are essential to keep them this way nowadays. In addition, guns (held by good peeps) help prevent and stop crime, not cause crime



Marcopete :
The users can do the math of purchase cost vs energy and maintenance cost for themselfes. And rest assured, they do

The professional users (who generally are the users of most advanced lighting - MV, ...) will choose the best lighting for the application on all accounts

The home users are not as experts, but they definitely do understand the meaning of energy cost

When a lamp the user deems best is banned, he resorts to a less good lamp. That means, he does trade off from the performance, reliability, maintenance schedule and so on he counted for. This trade off WILL result in trying to overcome the impact - by using more lamps (so higher total wattage) to get back the performance, more maintenance trips (often involving driving fuel-powered lifts, using fuel-powered cars to deliver lamps....), more pollution from production and disposal of lamps, and so on..

In short, when a lamp ban causes the user to move to a less appropriate technology for the application, this CAN NOT end up well for the environment

What the users overlook, and "greenies" / governments are happy that the users overlook, is that the production of modern forms of lighting is even more polluting - Milligrams of mercury in Mercury lamps (which is a metal, that can be contained well without spills throughout the production), VS the process chemicals used to make semiconductors, or rarer phosphor compositions for Fluorescent lamps (that need mining, filtering, ..). The new materials are harder to recycle too. What allows this overlook is, that now the pollution goes on in China so it does not appear in the "environmental bill" of OUR countries. But China is on the same planet with us....

So cut the "global warming" thing (not you, the "greenies" and governments). The global warming is likely true by itself, it is likely true that our human activity is causing big part of it, but the lighting bans do NOTHING to improve the situation - They only make it worse behind our back

I thought I lived in a free country. I guess not since I can't get any light bulb I want. The politicians seem to worry what light bulbs you should be using than gun control. The politicians NEED to get lost!!! It's only a LIGHT BULB it's not going to kill you.

Not true!! A light bulb with a gun that didn't register it might just kill you!   Signed, Barack Obama