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History
- Referred to environmental conservation
- Referred to environmental conservation
Full text
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Title of bill
An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to incandescent lamps
Purpose
The purpose of the bill is to prohibit the sale of incandescent lamps on or after June 1, 2012. The bill also requires the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to evaluate the availability of proper storage, recycling and disposal of mercury-added consumer products and to further analyze the availability of alternative technologies to incandescent lamps. If DEC finds there are adequate mercury storage, recycling and disposal facilities available, the current disposal exemption in the law for mercury-containing lamps discarded by households or small businesses discarding fewer than 15 mercury-containing lamps per month shall no longer be in effect.
Summary of provisions
The purpose of the bill is to prohibit the sale of incandescent lamps on or after June 1, 2012. The bill also requires the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to evaluate the availability of proper storage, recycling and disposal of mercury-added consumer products and to further analyze the availability of alternative technologies to incandescent lamps. If DEC finds there are adequate mercury storage, recycling and disposal facilities available, the current disposal exemption in the law for mercury-containing lamps discarded by households or small businesses discarding fewer than 15 mercury-containing lamps per month shall no longer be in effect.
Justification
Recently Phillips Electronics became the first major North American producer of incandescent light bulbs to call for their phase-our by 2016. Legislation has been introduced in California, Connecticut and Rhode Island to ban the sale of these lights. Australia announced it will begin to phase incandescent light bulbs by 2010.
According to a press release from the Lighting Efficiency Coalition (which includes the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Californians Against Waste, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Earth Day Network and Phillips Electronics), the following savings would be realized: At the present time, there are approximately four billion screw-base light sockets that currently use inefficient, old-style incandescent lights. A savings of approximately $18 billion would be realized by consumers and businesses by using energy-efficient lighting.
* The annual energy demand for lighting would be reduced by the equivalent of what is generated by 30 nuclear power plants or up to 80 coal burning power plants.
* More than 158 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 5,700 pounds of air-born mercury emissions would be eliminated.
In addition, other states are proposing legislation to:
* Place a 25 cent tax on each incandescent bulb sold (Minnesota)
* Place a 10 cent surcharge on any incandescent lamp (Connecticut)
* Require or encourage state agencies to replace incandescent bulbs with energy efficient bulbs in state buildings (Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Carolina and Texas)
Legislative history
2007-2008: S.5823
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
This act would take effect immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.