Not a chance. The current U.S. administration has proceeded this week with enforcement of penalties for manufacturers who produce, or retailers who sell, incandescent lamps with efficiencies below 45 lumens per watt. Penalties do not apply to purchasers of these lamps.
The enforcement period started on August 1, 2023 following a year-long phase-in. The move began as bipartisan legislation in 2007 under George W. Bush as the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007, requiring energy improvements over time for incandescent lamps. The Obama administration added additional regulation on several types of incandescent lamps prior to leaving office in 2017 – regulations that would be rolled back by the Trump administration, only to have the rollback undone and the regulations re-established by the Biden administration. Phew.
Some incandescent lamps are still allowed to be manufactured and to be sold by retailers, including (from DOE’s listing):
- appliance lamps (for fridges, stoves)
- black light lamps
- bug lamps
- colored lamps
- G-shape lamps with >5” diameter
- infrared lamps
- left-hand thread lamps
- marine lamps
- plant light lamps
- R-20 short lamps
- silver bowl lamps
- traffic signal lamps