n his letter to the editor of July 22, Mr. Gardner of Coeur d'Alene implies that the mandatory use of compact fluorescent bulbs beginning in 2012 is President Obama's fault. Not so. The change from incandescent bulbs to CFLs is part of the 2007 energy bill approved two years before Obama became president.

CFLs use 50-80 percent less electrical energy than incandescent bulbs. If every U.S. household replaced just one incandescent with a CFL, the EPA estimates we would reduce air pollution by an amount equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road.

CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury and should be properly disposed of and not thrown out in the trash. The mercury in CFLs represents a much less significant environmental hazard than incandescents because CFLs require much less electricity and more than half of our nation's electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants - the largest source of U.S. mercury emissions.

For additional information, see the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org.

CHARLES F. KRAMER

Coeur d'Alene