The latest right-wing panic? Joe Biden is coming for your ceiling fans!

[Eugene]

The latest right-wing panic? Joe Biden is coming for your ceiling fans! (Salon)

Much like any attempt to tighten up gun safety policies (or gas stoves, for that matter) tends to lead to a "MY COLD DEAD HANDS!" panic, news that the U.S. Department of Energy is proposing a new rule that would make ceiling fans more energy efficient is sending right-wingers into a flurry of heated emotion — with Joe Biden as the first choice for where to hurl the blame.

As Newsweek points out in their coverage of this, using intel from a DOE spokesperson, "These proposed standards, which are required by Congress [and] wouldn't take effect until 2028, would give Americans more energy efficient options to choose from, and would save hardworking taxpayers up to $369 million per year, while substantially reducing harmful air pollution—a crucial fact that some have conveniently failed to mention." They add that, "Biden has made climate change and the green energy transition a massive focus of his administration by passing laws like the Inflation Reduction Act . . . and has also has taken smaller steps to reduce the nation's carbon footprint as well, such as establishing stricter regulations for gas stoves and dishwashers." And while none of this accurately translates to him personally ripping appliances out of the wall, the intent here does not compute for a certain faction of the population. ...

https://news.yahoo.com/latest-wing-panic-joe-biden-211115800.html

[KentuckyWoman]

1. He can have mine.

Damn thing squeaks and the fix it guy can't figure it out.

[murielm99]

4. LOL

I am sorry for laughing at you, but I can just see and hear this now. We are on our third fan. We finally have one that works well.

[Polybius]

18. Mine too

Last edited Mon Aug 28, 2023, 04:17 PM - Edit history (1)

And it doesn't bother me at all for some reason. I sleep right through it and I'm a super-light sleeper.

[doc03]

2. He will have to pry my fan from my cold dead fingers nt

[ret5hd]

3. Was anything said/implied/hinted at...

that they are proposing anything more than “efficiency standards” of some sort that would give you more efficient options when/if you replace your existing fans?

And if your fingers turn cold, how bad did you really need the fan?

[doc03]

7. The 2nd Amendment gives me that right, dammit. USA USA. nt

[mercuryblues]

8. Never hold a ceiling fan with your fingers.

That could hurt.

[Arthur_Frain]

5. In fairness if I'd known how horrible the led lights were going to turn out to be

I’d have bought a few cases of the old incandescent ones. Probably wouldn’t have used them house wide, just the room I read in most often.

[Lemon Lyman]

6. Ha!

Costco & Sam's Club used to sell LED's for almost nothing. I bought a 12-pack of LED bulbs at Sam's Club in May. The cost was $5.23. I went to buy more in July and was shocked at the price jump. They're now $21.98. I wish I would've bought $100 worth, regardless of how well they work or don't.

[doc03]

9. I think LEDs are far better than incandescent lights plus they use a fraction

of the energy. Those twisty things (CFL) were terrible.

[Arthur_Frain]

10. I didn't like the cfls either.

And the leds are better than when they first came out.

[Torchlight]

17. LED's are a LOT easier to read by for both my wife and me.

The CFL glare is just too damn harsh for me. The changeover was a win/win from out POV.

[hunter]

13. Constantly replacing incandescent bulbs always irritated the hell out of me.

I was an early adopter of compact fluorescent bubs. I always bought the high quality brands after I had some bad experiences with crap bulbs that would either flicker or burn out early.

I've got some higher quality compact fluorescent bulbs in my home that are more than twenty years old.

When I've had to replace compact fluorescent bulbs I use high quality LED bulbs.

California power companies were subsidizing these energy efficient bulbs for many years, but not the crappy brands. Some of the worst compact fluorescent bulbs I ever bought were the cheap unsubsidized brands found in places like WalMart.

If I put on my tinfoil hat I sometimes imagine that flooding the market with crap compact fluorescent and LED bulbs was a deliberate ploy by the coal-fired power industry to give them a bad reputation.

LED lighting technology has progressed so far that it's become common in the movie industry. Cinematographers are some of the fussiest people on earth about lighting and will not accept poor color rendition, flickering, etc..

Perversely, the lighting I'm now nostalgic for is orange high pressure sodium street lighting. I was a little sad when our city replaced that with more energy efficient "moonlight" LED fixtures.

[Hortensis]

14. Huh. Fwiw, we wouldn't go back if we could.

I like vintage table lamps, and a warm, incandescent-mimicking light is our favorite also. But they've made better light quality available and become dimmable, and they seem to last forever (originals in our kitchen recessed well over a decade without replacement) and aren't hot in our hot climate. We no longer buy them just for energy efficiency, battle climate change, etc.

[wishstar]

11. When I got AC 20 yrs ago, my light bill didn't go up because the fans had been so expensive to run

In NC, we needed 4 ceiling fans to stay comfortable before installing AC. One of the celing fans and a box fan burned out needing replacement plus we went through 2 dehumidifiers that burned out before getting AC.

We waited to get AC until the new refrigerant and 13 efficiency AC was standard and were amazed that light bill didn't go up at all when we switched to AC keeping house around 75-76.

[struggle4progress]

12. OK! I was wondering why I didn't have any!

[ananda]

15. I love my ceiling fans. They keep my electric bill down.

...

[ChazII]

19. I love my ceiling fans, too.

I keep my house at 80 degrees during the summer. With the heat have had these past two months in Phoenix they have been a sanity saver.

[Hortensis]

16. Lol, this OP immediately reminded me of the outrage and uproar on the right

over new LED energy efficiency regulations and climate change actions announced during Obama's presidency.

Forerunner of the defiant "They'll never take my freeeedom!!!!" yammering over masking and distancing to protect self and others from a deadly virus. But I'm glad I didn't know it. Or who among those we knew then would die.