Legislation to ban incandescent bulbs in Maine by 2010 mirrors what it seeks to prohibit: a vehicle that generates too much heat instead of light.

High-efficiency bulbs, like compact fluorescents, now occupy 20 percent of the light bulb market, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Their market share doubled in 2007, indicating consumers are adopting the bulbs just fine, without mandates.

Nevertheless, the federal energy bill enacted in December plans for the gradual retirement of incandescent bulbs by 2020. Given consumer appetite, though, this timetable looks to be long overcome by the market.

In Maine, rebates on high-efficiency bulbs are successful. In 2006, Efficiency Maine cracked 700,000 rebates on compact fluorescent bulb purchases, an increase of 500 percent over the previous year.

Rebates for compact fluorescents dropped from $2 to $1.50 in 2007, yet Efficiency Maine reported an increase in total rebates to almost 800,000, another indicator of growing consumer acceptance, sans government mandates.

Yet a mandate is now before Maine, which runs counter to the laudable progress in the marketplace. A ban on incandescent bulbs could likely derail this momentum; we urge lawmakers to stay out of its way. Adoption of high-efficiency lighting, and all its social and economic benefits, is moving nicely without government “help.”

Beyond bulbs, though, this effort also illustrates the clear delineation about what government should and shouldn’t do in energy policy. Like the incandescent bulb ban, there are ideas that generate heat, and those that generate light, like diversifying energy sources through practical, innovative alternatives.

Several latter examples are center stage in Augusta.

Like today, when New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham will address the Maine Legislature, and is expected – as Gov. John Baldacci did recently – to highlight potential energy partnerships between the state and province.

A report last year by the Maine Public Utilities Commission made a strong case for Maine to leave the ISO-New England power grid and join New Brunswick; the governments of both have agreed to study the notion further.

Then, the governor’s task force on wind power has released a draft report, outlining the steps Maine must take to realize its wind energy potential, after several rounds of scattershot regulatory decision-making.

The final report was due to the governor this week.

Although the bulb ban’s sponsor, Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, touts his legislation as critical for solving global warming, the impact of an incandescent-free Maine wouldn’t equal a single tiny ice floe. Gains in energy efficiency are undebatable, but it’s senseless to threaten something happening naturally with an unwieldy mandate.

Meanwhile, necessary and laudable advancements for Maine to secure clean, reliable alternative energies are in Augusta demanding attention. We know where we want lawmakers to spend their time.

It isn’t in our living rooms, checking our bulbs.

It is greeting the opportunities for progressive energy advancements, waiting on their doorstep.