Further Update, Virginia Committee Meeting

 

Scheduled to be reviewed January 26...

HB 66 to exempt Virginia manufacturers of incandescent light bulbs from the Federal ban on manufacture and sale of such light bulbs in the Commonwealth of Virginia is scheduled to be heard in the Commerce & Labor Subcommittee #2 on Thursday, January 26, 2012.

The agenda was modified:
"Please Note: HB66 has been removed from todays docket"

So it's been put forward a week, from the 19th to the 26th, hopefully with good reason...


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January 18:

Update
It has just been put on tomorrow's agenda


 
As seen, the bill was assigned to a sub-committee, meeting on Thursdays.

As can also be seen from the listing of other state bills,
what often happens is that these or any other bills are rarely defeated in the preliminary committee stages, that is, in votes undertaken to see if they will be passed on to the plenary sessions (when all members of a legislature vote on it).
Instead, when "the numbers" are judged not to be there, rather than calling for a committee vote, bills are quietly dropped, possibly to be taken up again should circumstances change, either in relation to the bill topic, or with regard to (new) committee members and their outlook.


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January 17:

Regarding the Virginia local light bulb freedom bill covered earlier in this blog, it was referred to the Virginia House Committee on Commerce and Labor, who are meeting today midday (ET) to consider it.

Like others (for example some of those in the resource links), I consider light bulb legislation as wrong on Democrat as on Republican policy - firstly, on overall energy saving and environmental grounds, but also, if that is disagreed with, on the basis that "liberal" politicians could tax energy demanding products, and use the income to lower the price on energy saving products - or to help finance whatever other state spending they want - though I personally feel the stimulation of competition on free markets is better, also to save energy in overall terms (http://ceolas.net/#li23x, competition and taxation policies as alternative to regulations).

That said, given the seeming necessity for Republicans and Democrats to keep opposing each other on this issue, local state repeal bills have had greater progress in Republican controlled legislatures, so given the Republican control of the Virginia State House, recently also achieved in the local Senate, there is some ground to hope for the progress of this bill.

The bill is about local manufacture and sale, and is as seen in the Committee dealing with Labor:
So a further local factor, which may also influence Democrats, is the acrimony that arose from the closure of GE Winchester incandescent manufacturing plant, as described in the earlier post, with the resulting joblessness among factory workers who have skills in making the incandescent bulbs.