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Department of Energy withdraws Obama-era lightbulb requirements (2019)

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September 5, 2019

On September 5, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a final rule that withdraws Obama administration rules that applied higher energy-efficiency requirements to certain types of specialty lightbulbs. The department also published a separate proposed rule saying that current energy-efficiency standards do not need to change.

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) gave the DOE the responsibility to manage an energy conservation program for consumer products, including lightbulbs. The law defined general service lamps (GSLs) to include general service incandescent lamps (GSILs), compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), general service light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lamps, and other lamps that the Secretary of Energy determines are used in a similar manner as traditional incandescent lightbulbs. Consumers are not allowed to purchase lightbulbs that fall within the definition of GSLs that do not meet energy-efficiency standards.

Following 2007 amendments to the EPCA, the DOE has been deciding whether to change the energy conservation standards for GSLs and whether to add particular kinds of lightbulbs to the definition of GSLs. During the Obama administration, the DOE issued two rules that expanded the definition of GSLs to lightbulbs that had been exempt from some energy-efficiency rules. Those rules were published in the _Federal Register_ in 2017, but they had not gone into effect. The Trump administration DOE scheduled the Obama-era rules for withdrawal effective October 7, 2019.

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