[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18425]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1210
                 TURN OUT THE LIGHTS FOR THOMAS EDISON

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, in 1 month, every home in America 
must be lit with the special $3, CFL government-approved lightbulb. The 
75-cent incandescent lightbulb, Thomas Edison's greatest invention, is 
going to be banned by the Federal Government. The Federal Government's 
anti-consumer choice law leaves Americans no other option but to 
purchase and use a harmful mercury-filled product.
  Also, this new ban is an American job killer. The government's new 
ban ended a manufacturing industry that went back to the days of Thomas 
Edison and instead shipped most of those jobs overseas, primarily to 
China. Isn't that lovely. Where does the Federal Government have the 
constitutional authority to force anybody to buy anything, from health 
care insurance to a box of doughnuts or even a lightbulb?
  It's time for the bureaucrats to quit forcibly micromanaging America. 
Let Americans choose how to light their own homes. Otherwise, we will 
have to turn out the lights. The party is over--even for Thomas 
Edison's lightbulb.
  And that's just the way it is.

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