Light bulbs that were set to be outlawed under an Obama-era regulation will stay on store shelves thanks to regulation rollback from the Trump administration.

Multiple outlets reported Wednesday that the Department of Energy had finalized a new rule striking a last-minute Obama regulation that outlawed certain kinds of light bulbs such as three-way bulbs, decorative bulbs, and “rough service lamps.”

“This regulation gives consumers more choices, and consumers are better off with more choices,” a Trump DOE official explained to The Hill.

One of the reasons that the Obama administration offered for the regulation was that people might purchase the these light sources instead of “other regulated lamp types” like LED or compact fluorescent bulbs. The Obama administration’s 2017 regulation was set to take effect in 2020.

Critics say that the Trump administration’s latest move will end up costing consumers more because the less regulated bulbs use more electricity.

“The rollback will lead to higher energy bills for homes and businesses, plus significantly more pollution harming our health and the environment due to all the extra electricity that will need to be generated,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a Wednesday statement. “Efficiency standards would ensure that every bulb purchased in the future is an efficient one. ”

“Wasting energy with inefficient lightbulbs isn’t just costly for homes and businesses, it’s terrible for our climate,” reads a statement from Alliance to Save Energy president Jason Hartke. “This rule means we’re going to need the electricity produced by 25 coal power plants just to power wasteful bulbs.

Nobody, however, will be forcing consumers to purchase and use less efficient light bulbs under the new rule, which is what the Trump Department of Energy said in the regulation.

“This rule does not prevent consumers from buying the lamps they desire, including efficient options,” the department. The department added that “the market is successfully transitioning to LEDs regardless of government regulation. Consumers are clearly taking advantage of the energy savings provided by LEDs.”

The regulations are an implementation mechanism for part of a 2007 energy law that addresses efficiency standards for light bulbs and was meant to phase out less efficient bulbs over time. The first wave of regulations from 2007 statute led to several unintended consequences such as plant closings and spurred on failed attempts to repeal it. (For more from the author of “The Trump Administration Is Planning to Re-Legalize Light Bulbs Set to Be Outlawed by Obama Admin” please click HERE)

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The first big news details how a DOJ official issued reservations about going forward with surveillance on Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The individual cited that the source behind the FBI’s justification for doing so, British Spy Christopher Steele, was biased. The FBI kept pushing for it anyway and were eventually successful. Text messages between former FBI attorney Lisa Page and fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe tell the story. From the report:

Fox News is told the texts were connected to the ultimately successful Page application, which relied in part on information from British ex-spy Christopher Steele – whose anti-Trump views are now well-documented – and cited Page’s suspected Russia ties. In its warrant application, the FBI assured the FISA court on numerous occasions that other sources independently corroborated Steele’s claims but did not clearly state that Steele worked for a firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Next, while Page and McCabe are refusing to clarify, it appears the Obama White House may have been directly briefed on the matter.

“Just called,” Page said to McCabe. “Apparently the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] now wants to be there, and WH wants DOJ to host. So we are setting that up now. … We will very much need to get Cohen’s view before we meet with her. Better, have him weigh in with her before the meeting. We need to speak with one voice, if that is in fact the case.” (“Cohen” is likely then-Deputy CIA Director David Cohen.)

McCabe responded within the hour: “Thanks. I will reach out to David.” On Oct. 19, Page wrote to McCabe that the “meeting with WH counsel is finally set up.”

Neither @barackobama nor any WH official under Obama has ever ordered surveillance on any US Citizen. Any suggestion is unequivocally false pic.twitter.com/qF04X3NUvq

— Kevin Lewis (@KLewis44) March 4, 2017

(Read more from “New Texts Show the Obama White House May Have Been Briefed About Spying on the Trump Campaign” HERE)

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The Obama administration refuses to enforce federal law that protects Americans’ freedom of conscience, a Christian legal aid group says.

In 2014, California began mandating that employee health plans cover elective abortions. A state agency is refusing to exempt churches from the mandate, said Casey Mattox, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.

“Churches should never be forced to cover elective abortion in their insurance plans, and for 10 years the Weldon Amendment has protected the right to have plans that do not include coverage for abortion on demand,” Mattox said in a statement.

The federal Weldon Amendment prohibits states receiving taxpayer funds under federal law from discriminating against health insurance plans that don’t cover abortion, Mattox has argued.

“The administration’s refusal to enforce [the Weldon Amendment] continues its pattern of enforcing laws it wants to enforce, refusing to enforce others, and inventing new interpretations of others out of whole cloth,” Mattox said in a formal statement.

“California has outlawed the licensing of any health care plan in the state that does not cover elective abortion. It is perfectly clear that California is violating the law and the Obama administration has frequently been refusing to enforce the law,” Mattox told The Daily Signal.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed two lawsuits in California challenging the rule.

Since the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, requires employers to provide health insurance coverage, California churches have been left without a way to opt out of paying for abortions, Alliance Defending Freedom says.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mattox said, “is obligated to go enforce this law itself, and it has decided that it is not going to enforce the law.”

“The administration’s refusal to enforce [the Weldon Amendment] continues its pattern of enforcing laws it wants to enforce, refusing to enforce others, and inventing new interpretations of others out of whole cloth,” Mattox said in a statement.

The Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services sent a response letter to several formal complaints filed by Life Legal Defense Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom over the California Department of Managed Health Care’s decision to force all employers to cover elective abortions.

In the letter, the Obama administration dismissed the “right of conscience” complaints after concluding that California’s law does not violate federal law, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Jocelyn Samuels, director of the federal agency’s Office for Civil Rights, wrote in the response letter: “A finding that [California Department of Managed Health Care] has violated the Weldon Amendment might require the government to rescind all funds appropriated under the Appropriations Act to the state of California.”

Rescinding the taxpayer money, Samuels added, “would raise substantial questions about the constitutionality of the Weldon Amendment.”

Addressing that position, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Mattox said:

The Obama administration says enforcing the Weldon Amendment against California would violate the Constitution because you would be withholding all of these funds from the state. Which is very interesting because at the exact same time, you have the administration telling North Carolina that it’s going to withhold funds under the exact same appropriations bill.

The Justice Department sent North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, a letter in May saying the state’s “bathroom bill” violated federal law. The measure, which McCrory signed in March, made bathrooms in government buildings accessible based on a person’s biological sex, not his or her gender identity.

This is a “blatant contradiction,” Mattox said.

“Basically, the administration is speaking out of both sides of its mouth,” he said. (For more from the author of “Obama Administration Refuses to Enforce ‘Right of Conscience,’ Legal Group Says” please click HERE)

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