Texas wants to turn the lights off on a federal plan to phase out certain light bulbs

Where did you get your number from hawkeye?

US organic food sales in US was 22.6 billion in 2008, up 16% from 2007
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Business/US-organics-buck-recessionary-trend

Organic food sales in 2009 up from 2008
http://www.organicnewsroom.com/2010/04/us_organic_product_sales_reach_1.html

I have noticed your facts are non existent hawkeye, YOU might want to work on that.

http://www.sustainablefoodnews.com/story.php?news_id=12350
Figures from 2008, 2009, and 2010 for organic foods. It clearly shows an increase every year.

imagine a lightbulb in the texas sky

By investing in clean energy technology of course.

I'm waiting for Obama to invoke the spirit of the Space Race to prompt a huge investment of taxpayer funds in a crash course on clean energy technology development.

Maybe he's already done it and I missed it.

Of course we would have to lower our living standards for a decade or so while the scientists and engineers work their magic, but isn't the fate of Mother Earth more important that our creature comforts?

We already consume too much and a decade or two of austerity will do our souls good.

Who will do the investing? Windmills & propellers have been around for a long time and no new technological breakthroughs are likely. Wind power has a much higher capital cost than coal, gas or even nuclear and its operating costs are higher as well.

Breakthroughs are possible in solar power, but it will take a long time and even if we develop a cell able to capture 80% of the incident energy ( a factor of four improvement opver today's technology) it will still take huge areas to produce the kind of power we need.

We will have to get through the next century largely on what we have.

We the taxpayers will do the investing, and those of us who make a lot of money and pay the most taxes will be the lucky vanguard of this glorious crusade.

As you are probably aware, "investment" has recently come to mean exactly the same as "spending".

wrong again

Not so much wrong as there is conflicting data, which is a bit understandable when there is not even agreement on what organic is. I was looking at stuff like this:

Yes indeed.

I hate to use emoticons to signify sarcasm.

You are WRONG hawkeye..

You don't have conflicting data. You have data that only covers UPC coded data. Learn how to interpret data for God's sake.

It doesn't say a thing about how much people spent on Organics. The chart may only show that all Organics stopped putting UPC labels on their products.

Even more astounding is how you think 1% GROWTH per month is a reduction.
The chart shows GROWTH, not actual sales hawkeye.
Growth in 2010 was 2.1%..


UPC coded organics makes up about 20-25% of organics
http://www.supermarketguru.com/index.cfm/go/sg.viewArticle/articleId/1988

http://www.cnn.com/

I think that the "GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF MICRO-MANAGING MY LIFE!" school is gaining members.

It's an internet survey hawkeye.

It shows nothing about general viewpoints. It isn't random. It isn't restricted to one answer per person. I could easily write a script to answer it 10,000 times one way or the other.

July 22, 2011
House kills bill to keep compact fluorescent bulbs off Capitol Hill
By Daniel Lippman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives on Friday defeated an amendment that would have prohibited the federal government from installing or buying compact fluorescent light bulbs for congressional offices.

The amendment's author, Rep. Glenn "GT" Thompson, R-Pa., had argued that the energy efficient and squiggly shaped bulbs known as CFLs are not made in the U.S. and are dangerous because they contain mercury. The House rejected his amendment to the House appropriations bill that funds congressional operations 283-130.

He said that it would be better for the government to support U.S.-made products by not buying CFL bulbs that are made overseas. If his amendment had passed, he had hoped that the move would promote U.S. light bulb manufacturers, including two Sylvania plants in his congressional district that produce energy-efficient halogen bulbs.

Sounding like a salesman, Thompson said that "our manufacturers have stepped up and they have some great products out there that are very energy efficient."

Echoing a common concern of opponents of CFLs, Thompson said that the light created by non-CFL bulbs is easier on the eyes.

"Maybe this is a personal perspective, but I also find that the light that they create is a lot easier for me to read (in) than the lumens that are put out by CFLs," he said.

Thompson said he was disappointed that his amendment failed to pass. One hundred and four Republicans and 179 Democrats voting against the amendment, while 126 Republicans and four Democrats voted for it.

"I think a lot of people didn't understand what they were voting on because anyone who voted against my amendment was voting for jobs in China when they could have been voting for jobs in the United States," he said.

Environmentalists said his proposal was unwise, as CFLs would save the government money and are more energy efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Jim Presswood, the federal energy policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, argued that Thompson's amendment "doesn't make any sense."

He added that any mercury risk posed by CFLs is minimal even if the bulb breaks. His group argues that CFLs are 75 percent more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and save the government about $50 for every light socket on Capitol Hill.

Presswood also cited a company called Technical Consumer Products Inc. that plans to begin manufacturing CFLs domestically, at a plant in Ohio.

Thompson's amendment came in the wake of a widely publicized move by some House Republicans last week to repeal federal regulations that increase efficiency standards for light bulbs. Those rules require most bulbs to be 25 to 30 percent more efficient by 2014.

Conservatives claimed that the rules — part of an energy law passed by Congress in 2007 — are an example of federal government overreach into Americans' personal consumption habits and would effectively ban the sale of incandescent bulbs because they might not meet the higher efficiency standards.

The vote was 233-193 in favor of the bill, but it was defeated because the legislation was introduced under special rules that required approval by two-thirds of the chamber.

Thompson agreed with the environmentalists and Democrats who opposed the repeal and voted against most of his party on the bill.

"Folks on Capitol Hill, in the House specifically, were purporting that there was a ban on incandescent light bulbs, and as we researched it and actually talked with the U.S. light bulb industry, we found that not to be true," he said.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/07/22/118074/house-kills-bill-to-keep-compact.html#ixzz1Sw9mmIe4

It's a good thing the GOP was looking at CFLs instead of dealing with minor things like jobs or whether to drive the US into default on it's debt.

It takes two to create a deadlock. The president has yet to present a specific plan to the public for the resolution of our combined spending, debt and economic growth crisis. Instead he and his party have avoided approving specific budgets on time and, when they finally did, evaded the underlying issues now confromting us in what they offered. The President, just weeks after his belated budget submittal last year, virtually repudiated his own proposals in his SOU speech. He is now attempting to posture himself as the "adult in the room" during negotiations, all without himself offering anything specific (except for more taxes) that would address any component of these crises, and nothing at all that would addrerss all of its elements. The president doesn't lead but he seeks to preside, and to be the author of any progress that results - all while implaccably resisting the legitimate interests of his political opponents, who. like him were elected by the people.

President Obama is also presiding over the nation's slowest recovery from an economic recession in decades, all while pursuing an agenda of increased government spending and regulation of a stagnant economy that, in the eyes of many, is itself a contributor to our unusually slow recovery. The solution of our spending and debt crisis will require more than merely new taxes - economic growth, added incentives to work and create new private economic activity are required. Unfortunately they are the first casualties of the policies he is pursuing.

We would all be better off if he would just shut up and get out of the way. There's a very good essay to this effect by Peggy Noonan in today's WSJ.