Just saw a story about this on the evening news.  A couple of pieces of legislation, one called the BULB (Better Use of Light Bulbs) Act have been introduced with the aim of repealing the ban on incandescent bulbs.

Here's the article about it.

There is one problem with this activity: It goes against the huge financial power of the lampmaker's lobby.
Remember: Incandescents went so cheap, they didn't make money.
In the CFL's, wind and solar power are the huge money now, manly with the incentives received from governments and hose involved in this business won't simply give up...

That's a good point.  There are going to be some large lobbies against this. 

It is possible though.  New Zealand had a similar ban that was reversed 2 years ago.

It costs 10 cents to manufacture an incandescent bulb, and maybe 40 cents to make a CFL lamp. But an incandescent costs 25-50 cents in the store, while a CFL costs $4-6. There's the larger profit margin here.

Surely a solution would be to set a minimum price for an incandescent lamp with the fee channelled to offset its carbon effect, and to price CFLs at a competitive rate, so end users actually have a CHOICE to keep incandescent lamps or not. Surely this cannot be beyond lamp manufacturers and governments in every country to hammer a deal out to keep the bulb if that's what the country wants.

@Silverliner:
I think this is clearly confirmed by the "energy efficiency" advertisement totally ignoring the existence of linear fluorescent lamps - even if they are the most efficient high CRI diffused light sources (in the low output <few klm and short burning time/switching cycle range <5hours/cycle; for higher output, longer hours per switching cycle and/or focus requirement win CMH).
Again, these do not give anymore as good margin, as they are not as technically challenging (straight tube with separated ballast is way easier to handle then complex twisted shape with directly attached ballast exposed to high temperatures), so there is more competition, so lower margins.
By the way the superior performance of straight tubes is the other effect of the rather limited number of complications (compare to CFL's)...

I think it should be up to the the free market to decide wether or not the incandescent lamp should be banned. If people buy the bulb and do not like CFL or other alternatives, they shouldn't be forced by the government to buy something they don't trust. If people want to lower their energy bill and kill all their family members with CFLs, then they should be able to make that decision on their own without governmental enforcement.

Awesome! Thanks for posting this article. I hadn't heard about this bill. I will definitely be watching this one close.

I think it should be up to the the free market to decide wether or not the incandescent lamp should be banned. If people buy the bulb and do not like CFL or other alternatives, they shouldn't be forced by the government to buy something they don't trust. If people want to lower their energy bill and kill all their family members with CFLs, then they should be able to make that decision on their own without governmental enforcement.

I TOTALLY agree!  Very well said!

I definitely don't like the direction this country is headed in, we don't need unnecessary restrictions on lighting at all. These bans are not going to save the polar bears or protect the environment.

I totally agree on many levels. I mean for one if all these 'new' options for lighting were really so much 'better' you wouldn't have to force people to use them...people would just gradually start to move towards this new technology.

I just spent the summer converting a room in my basement to a home theater, all the lighting is incandescent and controlled by IR dimmers via a universal remote. The lighting has to be incandescent, nothing else would look right with such a setup. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I should start stockpiling bulbs now

I totally agree on many levels. I mean for one if all these 'new' options for lighting were really so much 'better' you wouldn't have to force people to use them...people would just gradually start to move towards this new technology.

I just spent the summer converting a room in my basement to a home theater, all the lighting is incandescent and controlled by IR dimmers via a universal remote. The lighting has to be incandescent, nothing else would look right with such a setup. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I should start stockpiling bulbs now

Start now. The incandescents are fading away. If we start stock-piling them now, we won't face the crowd of others doing so when they hear that incandescents are going.

How about a repeal on the stupid mercury ban?