Is California going to ban incandescent bulbs? Note terms "groundbreaking" and "pioneering." From
Reuters:
A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs as part of California's groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act" would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
"Meanwhile, they remain incredibly inefficient, converting only about 5 percent of the energy they receive into light."
Levine is expected to introduce the legislation this week, his office said.
If passed, it would be another pioneering environmental effort in California, the most populous U.S. state. It became the first state to mandate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, targeting a 25 percent reduction in emissions by 2020. [...]
In a related development, a suburb of San Francisco is considering a measure to ban smoking in private homes which are part of multi-unit dwellings such as apartment buildings. From the
LA Times:
When the City Council of this San Francisco suburb voted to consider what could be the most stringent tobacco regulation in America, anti-smoking activists cheered. Banning smoking everywhere but single-family detached homes and their yards would be a big step forward, even in health-conscious California.
Then the blogosphere erupted. Side-by-side portraits of Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach and Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler were posted on a smoking-rights website. Threats were e-mailed to City Hall, and police and prosecutors were called in to investigate.
Were any low-key statements made questioning the wisdom of the ban?
A strict new ordinance is still set to be unveiled this winter for more public discussion and an eventual vote. But instead of just the flat-out ban on lighting up in apartments, condominiums and public places that captured worldwide attention, City Atty. Marc Zafferano said the first draft would be a menu of restrictions from which council members could pick and choose.
So although Belmont may not make the kind of history envisioned in the early headlines ("Belmont to be first U.S. city to ban all smoking"), it still could make history of another sort, by finding a line this tobacco-averse nation is unwilling to cross — at least for the moment — in pursuit of better public health.
"I don't know where the boundaries of a truly legally defensible ordinance are," acknowledged Councilman Dave Warden, who is pushing to pass "the strictest law possible."
"I really believe that we're really so close to the line that no one can really tell," he said.
Even though nearly two-thirds of Americans have smoke-free policies in their own homes, according to the 2000 census, restrictions on smoking in multi-unit buildings, in the very sanctity of one's own living room, constitute a new frontier in tobacco law. The Belmont City Council is "breaking new ground," said Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project, who has advocated for smoking bans in multifamily buildings. "I think the folks in Belmont have to be very careful in what they do on this one…. There is always a question of how fast do you move."
Twenty years ago, a proposal to prohibit smoking in condos and apartments "would have been a radical and crazy idea," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Today, it's an idea that's gaining growing acceptance, precisely because the science has evolved and changed."
But though the U.S. surgeon general declared last year that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, acceptance may not be here quite yet . . .
Besides all the references to "new frontiers" etc., this article displays a spooky avoidance of the question of whether second-hand smoke travels through walls. How is that declaration about "no safe level of exposure" to be interpreted? If there is only one smoker left on the planet and he lives in China, am I at risk here in California? (Hat Tip for both articles:
Drudge)
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