From the New York Times

It's interesting to see another example of ham-handed government attempts to steer a market and a technology, trying to patch each unintended consequence as it comes up with another layer of rules.

Before CFLs became a political issue, people were paying higher prices for those specific applications where CFLs made sense. I did. Prices were dropping, and quality was increasing. Slowly, but it was happening. The market was dealing with the new technology.

Now regulation on top of regulation will try to create a cheap bulb that works great by legislative fiat. It's pretty much the government approach to most tech issues.