Now, if you’re Al Gore, you can afford $10 a pop for squiggly-pig-tailed fluorescent light bulbs. But if you’re mainstream America, two or three kids, mom and dad working outside the home, that’s not a very good deal.

In this remark Barton contrasts a wealthy, high-profile environmental advocate (Al Gore) with “mainstream America” to argue that climate- or energy-related consumer choices can impose disproportionate costs on ordinary families. By caricaturing compact fluorescent bulbs as odd-looking and expensive, he frames efficiency mandates and green consumerism as elitist and out of touch with household budgets. The underlying claim is political as much as economic: environmental policy is portrayed as a lifestyle preference affordable to the privileged rather than a broadly beneficial public good. The quote also illustrates a common rhetorical strategy in U.S. energy debates—using everyday family imagery to contest regulations and to shift attention from long-term savings or externalities to upfront purchase price.