The lighting industry is scrambling this morning to gauge what effect a controversial provision slipped into the House omnibus appropriations language would have on its plans to comply with light bulb efficiency standards that were set to take effect in less than three weeks.

The GOP-backed language -- originally included as an amendment to the Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers spending bill the House passed this summer -- prohibits DOE from implementing the standards, some of which are already in effect and others that would require manufacturers to sell more efficient light bulbs starting Jan. 1.

The lighting industry has been gearing up since 2007 -- when the standards were originally enacted -- to make light bulbs that meet the requirements.

All five of the major light bulb manufacturers are already selling new incandescent bulbs that give off the same amount of light as a traditional 100-watt bulb using about 30 percent less energy. And while they are not planning to pull those bulbs from the shelves if the controversial language is enacted, they are faced with numerous questions moving forward.

"Eliminating funding for light bulb efficiency standards is especially poor policy as it would leave the policy in place but make it impossible to enforce, undercutting domestic manufacturers who have invested millions of dollars in U.S. plants to make new incandescent bulbs that meet the standards," a group of dozens of lighting manufacturers, efficiency groups and environmentalists said in a letter yesterday to senators.

In addition, individual states would still be free to enforce their own standards. California, for instance, has already implemented the standards ahead of the planned federal rollout.

"It would create a patchwork of enforcement that would be nightmarish for the industry," one lighting industry executive said in an interview this morning.

A Senate Democratic aide added, "It would totally confuse the market" and "would set a terrible precedent."

For more than a year, tea party-backed Republicans have pushed to eliminate the standards, citing them as an example of government overreach and saying they would ban the sale of traditional incandescent bulbs. When a bill that would strip them outright failed in the House earlier this year, anti-standards Republicans slipped the language into the Appropriations bill instead.

That language was not included in a version of the bill that cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee, and top Democrats -- including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who leads the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) -- have publicly bashed its inclusion in the spending package.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who originally authored the 2007 bill that included the standards, said, "I strongly oppose that language. I hope it's deleted from any final bill that we pass."

But he stopped short of saying the light bulb language would be a deal-breaker for him. "I don't know, depends on what else is in as well. I hope the light bulb language can be dropped before we get to a vote."

The measure the House made public early this morning includes about $26 billion in funding for DOE, a level slightly higher than last year's funding but sharply below President Obama's request for the agency. Funding for nuclear energy and fossil energy research programs would see a slight boost over last year's funding levels, while funding for renewable energy research programs would remain largely static.

The language doesn't include any new funds for the now-shuttered Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, as the House-passed energy and water spending bill did earlier this year. But the bill does contain language that forbids the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from killing any program or changing congressional direction without majority approval from fellow commissioners.

Appropriators also left out $120 million DOE had requested to conduct research at a uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio.

DOE asked for up to $300 million during the next two years to test uranium enrichment technology using gas centrifuges at U.S. Enrichment Corp.'s (USEC) plant in Ohio, and House Republicans pushed hard for the money to create jobs in the state, generate fuel for nuclear power plants and military operations.

The fate of USEC's technology without DOE financial support remains unclear. The agency proposed the research and development program to bring the technology closer to commercialization after stepping back from the company's request for a $2 billion federal loan (E&E Daily, Dec. 9).

But the company remains optimistic that the funding could be reinstated.

"While the RD&D funding was not included in the fiscal year 2012 appropriations legislation introduced in the House last night, Congress has not completed action on funding for current government fiscal year and USEC continues to work with the Department of Energy and Congress to achieve funding for the cost-sharing research, development and demonstration program for the American Centrifuge project," said Paul Jacobson, a spokesman for the company.

Stripping down the loan guarantee program

The House spending plan also takes a swipe at DOE's much-maligned renewable energy loan guarantee program by rescinding $181 million in unallocated funding for the effort.

The Section 1705 program has been a subject of intense congressional scrutiny in the wake of the failure of the Solyndra solar energy company that received over a half-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees. And as a half dozen high profile hearings and the ongoing battle with the White House over Solyndra-related documents has played out on Capitol Hill, some groups have called for the loan program to be shut down.

The House Appropriations Committee today noted in a summary of the 2012 funding measure that the $181 million rescission would terminate "the program that granted funds to the failed company Solyndra."

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who is leading the House investigation into Solyndra and related matters, said it was fitting that his inquiry -- "the first ever oversight on the Energy Department's loan guarantee program" -- would yield a budget cut.

"We looked at the very first loan made using stimulus dollars, which went to Solyndra, a company that went bankrupt and is the subject of a criminal investigation," Stearns said in a statement provided to Greenwire. "We learned that the loan guarantee for Solyndra did not receive adequate oversight and that it was rushed to completion. As for the overall loan guarantee program, it is questionable how many jobs were created. Cutting the funds left in the expired program would end taxpayer support for this misguided effort and help with deficit reduction."

But Walter Howes, who ran DOE's loan program under former President George W. Bush, said the rescission does not exactly mean the end of DOE's 1705 efforts.

The 1705 program currently has a portfolio of 28 projects worth $16 billion. Howes said that the rescission would not affect the funding to meet commitments already made to those projects. Funds would also still be in place to run the office and pay employees to monitor the government's portfolio of investments.

He noted that the money being rescinded came from stimulus funding that was allowed to be carried into 2012 under language from an earlier continuing resolution.

Howes added that nobody who understands how the program works would consider walking away from the government's investments by shutting down the office completely.

"As opposed to wielding a bat and doing something counterproductive, this is their attempt to do a little bit of a surgical strike," said Howes, who now serves as managing partner at Verdigris Capital LLC. "My prediction is that this is as far as anyone could rationally go or politically feasibly could go."

Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.