20220901Petitioners Supplemental Reply Comments.pdf

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Mark Baker
President
Soft Lights Foundation
9450 SW Gemini Drive PMB 44671
Beaverton, OR 97008
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail]

BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

In the matter of the Petition for the
Regulation of Light Emitting Diode
Streetlights

Case No. GNR-E-22-02
Response to Idaho Power Comments
of August 31, 2022
I. INTRODUCTION
Idaho Power Company responded to the Soft Lights Foundation petition
regarding LED streetlights with false statements and illogical conclusions on
August 31, 2022. The Soft Lights Foundation hereby responds and requests
that the Idaho PUC reject the Idaho Power Company’s false claims and
unjustified conclusions.
II. REBUTTALS
A. FDA Regulation
There exists a federal regulatory process whereby a person or company
can petition the federal government for authorization to modify a rule or to
develop a new rule. Congress authorized and directed the Food and Drug
RECEIVED
2022 September 1, AM 8:58
IDAHO PUBLIC
UTILITIES COMMISSION
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Administration to oversee this federal regulatory process for Light Emitting
Diode products. As Idaho Power Company notes, the FDA has not yet published
the comfort, health, and safety regulations for LED products. However, instead
of following the required federal procedure of submitting a petition to the FDA
for authorization to sell and operate LED products and for the FDA to develop
the necessary comfort, health, and safety regulations for LED products, IPC
simply skipped the entire federal regulatory process and began installing LED
streetlights. As per IPC, the company has already completed 68% of the
conversion to LED streetlights by bypassing the federal regulatory process.
IPC then requests that the Idaho PUC authorize IPC to be allowed to
continue installing LED streetlights without waiting for FDA approval. However,
IPC then admits that they have no expertise on the negative health effects of
LED streetlights and states, “warnings should be directed by governing public
health agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” In other
words, IPC admits that the FDA and other federal health agencies are
responsible for providing health and safety regulations, and yet IPC wants to be
allowed to bypass the federal regulatory process so that they can rush to
complete their LED streetlight installation. We sincerely hope that the Idaho
PUC agrees that IPC’s request to bypass the federal regulatory process and put
public health at risk must be denied.

B. Energy Efficiency
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IPC falsely claims that LED streetlights are energy efficient. The Idaho
PUC must not allow IPC to make this false claim without consequence. The
standard definition of energy efficiency is providing the same quality of
service using less energy. Figure 1 shows the spatial property of a curved
surface source such as High-Pressure Sodium and a flat surface source such as
LED. It is obvious from the diagram that curved surfaces emit spatially uniform
energy, while LEDs emit non-uniform energy. The non-uniform spatial energy
of LED light is highly toxic and dangerous to human health and immediately
confirms that LEDs produce a lower quality service than HPS, and thus LEDs are
not energy efficient.

Figure 1 - Curved vs. Flat Source1

1 https://youtu.be/fkb1zeoXIug?list=PL5A3ppJRK9Eo49g5fWbG_9pUcY50NsmUG
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In addition to lower quality of service spatially, LEDs emit lower quality
spectrally. Figure 2 shows the spectral power distribution for High Pressure
Sodium on the left and a 4000K LED on the right. Hundreds of studies have
established that blue wavelength light is a toxin2, and thus the use of LED
streetlights is a known health hazard. The light from LEDs is lower in quality
than the light from HPS because the LED streetlights have excessive blue
wavelength light. Again, because of the lower quality of LED light, LEDs are not
energy efficient.

Figure 2 - HPS vs. LED

The IPC cannot simply wave their arms and claim that LED streetlights
are more energy efficient than HPS. The must justify their claim with science,
and yet the science makes clear that LED streetlights produce a different type of

2 www.softlights.org/resources
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light, with spatially non-uniform energy, high blue content spectral power
distribution, and square wave flicker, all of which are toxic for humans.

C. Light Quality
IPC states, “LED lights provide better light quality. LED lights project light
in a focused pattern, directing light more precisely where it is needed.” As
shown above, IPC’s statement that LED lights provide better light quality is
provably false. The Idaho PUC must not allow IPC to make such false claims.
IPC also states that LEDs project light in focused pattern. This claim is
deceitful, because while it is true that LED light is focused, IPC fails to inform
the Idaho PUC that this focused beam is not spatially uniform. The
consequence of switching to a flat surface light source is that this highly
concentrated beam of light has non-uniform luminance, which triggers epileptic
seizures, migraines, panic attacks, nausea, and eye injury. There is no doubt
that LED light is of inferior quality and is causing serious health problems.
IPC states, “In addition, the color temperature of the light appears whiter
with better color rendition thus providing greater clarity than the yellow hues of
high-pressure sodium vapor lighting.” This is another attempt by IPC to
somehow justify the use of LED light when such justification cannot be made.
Stating that the light is “whiter” is again deceitful. As is obvious from the
spectral power distribution graphs for LEDs, an LED streetlight is mostly blue.
The so-called “white” color that IPC claims is actually just glare, with the brain
attempting to assign a color to an unnatural light. LED light is certainly not
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white. LED light does not provide greater clarity because of the extreme glare
from a small source with high luminance. At night, contrast is extremely
important, and the use of high-glare, high-blue content, spatially non-uniform
light causes the pupil to dilate and constrict, which exhausts the eye and
reduces visual acuity.

D. Industry Standard
IPC is fond of using the term “industry standard”. However, when it
comes to public health, industry standard is irrelevant. As IPC noted, the
industry is not responsible for setting comfort, health, and safety standards, it is
the public health agencies such as the FDA, EPA, CDC, Access Board, and others
that set these standards, which in the case of LED products would be
restrictions on spatial non-uniformity, peak luminance, maximum blue content,
and square wave flicker. Of course we would all prefer that our federal
government act more quickly and more robustly to protect public health, but
just because the federal government has not yet published the health standards
for LED products does not authorize IPC to endanger public health by installing
and operating LED streetlights without these standards.

III. CONCLUSION
We have shown that IPC has made multiple false and/or deceitful
statements and that LED light is known to be toxic and dangerous. We have
also shown that IPC failed to follow federal regulatory procedures.
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Therefore, we request that the Idaho PUC accept our petition and direct
Idaho Power Company to refrain from installing any additional LED
streetlights and to follow the federal regulatory process for applying for FDA
approval to sell, install, and operate LED products.

Sincerely,
/s/ Mark Baker
President
Soft Lights Foundation
August 31, 2022