Legislation + Regulation

Last week, President Biden signed the $750 Billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The new law addresses inflation, climate, energy, prescription drug policy, and corporate tax changes. Roughly $370 Billion are focused on combatting climate change, including energy generation and transmission, manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and environmental justice. 

Significant climate action legislation is occurring at the US Federal level, as well as in Massachusetts and Maryland.

Industry discussions about sustainable lighting are increasing, but what would sustainable product regulations look like? The European Union (EU) is far ahead of North America on sustainable product regulations, and a look at what the EU is doing gives one vision of where sustainable product regulations could go in North America.

On May 31st, 2022, the US Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Notice of Proposed Determination that it does not intend to amend efficiency standards for General Service Fluorescent Lamps (GSFL). On July 11th, 2022, DOE held a webinar presenting its rationale.

Vermont is the first state in the U.S. to ban 4′ fluorescent linear lamps.

My contribution to the June issue of ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR describes two major Department of Energy rulings related to incandescent lamps–one that revises definitions to eliminate previous exemptions, and anohter that interprets the 2007 energy law’s backstop provision, which will eliminate a majority of lamps that previously complied.

The American Lighting Association (ALA) has alerted its members to AB 2026, a bill addressing product packaging in California.

A recent survey by Electrical Wholesaling of the Top 150 electrical distributor chains, revealed that Infrastructure Law funds are beginning to be spent in the electrical market.

While many in the lighting industry are aware that US DOE recently issued a Final Rule for a definition change of general service lamps (GSL) as well as General Service Incandescent Lamps (GSIL), many in the industry don’t realize the impact of this expanded GSL definition on many LED lamps. Most of the public discussion around the new GSL definition focused on the addition of incandescent and halogen specialty lamps to the regulated GSL category. However, the new expanded GSL definition encompasses many LED lamps, in addition to incandescent and halogen.