BY ELLIE DEES
What is old is new again. More than 140 years after Thomas Edison patented his version of the incandescent lightbulb, the Biden administration’s Energy Department in 2022 established two new rules that ended their production in the United States going into 2023. On his first day back in office, Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the “Unleashing American Energy” executive order. Among other provisions, the order removed the ban on incandescent light bulbs. This action aimed to “safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, including but not limited to lightbulbs.”
The first Biden-era rule revised the definition of general service lamps; the second created an efficiency standard of 45 lumens per watt for those lamps. This essentially amounted to a ban on production of less efficient incandescent and halogen bulbs in favor of LEDs and some compact fluorescent bulbs.
For manufacturers, full enforcement of the rules began Jan. 1, 2023. Distributors and retailers then had up to 7 months to reduce their stock levels.
The lightbulb rollback was expected to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S., while saving consumers money in the long term by forcing them to use more energy efficient, longer-lasting light products.
The transition was long in the making. President George W. Bush made energy savings from lightbulbs a national goal in 2007. Energy efficiency standards that would have banned the incandescent bulb two years ago were rolled back in 2019 by President Donald Trump, who said they were not “economically justified.” At the time, he notably complained about LEDs to fellow lawmakers, saying: “The light’s no good. I always look orange.”
Of course, LEDs are still far more efficient than incandescent bulbs. And fear not! Quality LED fixtures offered by architectural lighting companies like Acolyte also provide far superior color rendering, which means you see colors as they’re meant to be seen, in clothing, skin tones, furniture, art and more!
