Not a real bright idea

“Government did us in,” says Dwayne Madigan, whose job will terminate when General Electric closes its factory next July.

Madigan makes a product that will soon be illegal to sell in the U.S. - a regular incandescent bulb. Two years ago, his employer, GE, lobbied in favor of the law that will outlaw the bulbs.

Madigan’s colleagues, waiting for their evening shift to begin, all know that GE is replacing the incandescents for now with compact fluorescents bulbs, which GE manufactures in China.

That would be mercury-containing fluorescents for those of you scoring at home. Publicly, G.E. states the reason they are shutting down the Winchester Bulb Plant (200 jobs lost) which is 80 miles west of D.C. is that their hand was forced by environmental regulations that phase-out the use of incandescent bulbs in favor of the fluorescents.

However, the dirty little secret is that G.E. lobbied for these regulatory changes contained within the 2007 Energy bill. The opportunity to mandate that consumers buy the more expensive fluorescents with the additional benefit of having them manufactured on the cheap in China was one that G.E. was not going to pass up.

So to recap: More expensive bulbs? Check. Bulbs that cost American jobs? Check. Bulbs that contain an element, Mercury, that is on every banned-list that we are aware of, including the construction program we are currently working on? Check. Bulbs that allow G.E. some back-slapping smuggery that they are doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’t, yea, for the environment? Double-check.

And don’t be at all surprised if at this very moment, G.E. is working on a patent for curbside pick-up of those mercury-containing light bulbs to be disposed of in a proper fashion. For a small fee, of course.