It’s a mystery to us how a light bulb came to symbolize a bright idea, because they’ve produced only dim-bulb thinking in Washington lately.

As part of a $1 trillion stopgap spending bill passed by Congress on Friday, the incandescent light bulb has received a reprieve. Originally, under a bipartisan measure signed by President Bush in 2007, light bulbs were going to have to be 30 percent more energy efficient starting Jan. 1. 2012. Incandescent bulbs were never going to be banned, but realistically that means switching to compact fluorescents or LED lights. The spending bill carries a provision preventing the Energy Department from enforcing the rules for another nine months, until the end of