Legislation to allow the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs within Virginia's borders after new federal energy standards take effect is dead.

A House of Delegates subcommittee tabled Del. Bob Marshall's bill on an unrecorded voice vote Thursday after a deputy attorney general testified that it's unconstitutional.

A federal law enacted in 2007 imposes energy-reduction standards that incandescent bulbs historically have not met. Critics have characterized it as a ban on traditional bulbs and have chafed at the prospect of having to use more expensive compact fluorescent lights bulbs, or CFLs, after enforcement begins in October.

Marshall, a Prince William County Republican, said CFLs contain mercury that makes them more hazardous than incandescent bulbs.