By CECIL BOTHWELL

As I write this essay, I am enjoying a balmy breeze provided by the appliance swirling overhead — a ceiling fan revolving at medium speed, quietly making my office more comfortable.

Though results vary, it’s estimated that ceiling fans raise an average person’s comfort level by about 4 degrees in summer heat. That can reduce or eliminate the need (or desire) for air conditioning, and simply make the warm months much more tenable for those to whom air conditioning is an unaffordable luxury.

For old Jimmy Buffett fans like yours truly, they frequently trigger remembrance of the bedroom scene in “Havana Daydreamin’.”

In wintertime the benefit of ceiling fans is harder to quantify, but given that warm air rises, their carefully considered use ought to help reduce heating costs by returning all that risen air toward our chilly feet. In high-ceilinged spaces, that can be particularly effective.

Hence, as a strategy for reducing energy use, installation of ceiling fans is excellent. Spinning three or five blades draws much less power than running the fan and compressor in an AC system, or fueling a heat source. At the same time, it makes great good sense that any appliance should use as little power as possible to achieve desired results. That saves energy and shaves dollars off your power bill.

Federal legislation first passed during the G.W. Bush administration imposed efficiency standards on fan manufacturers, at the request of that industry. But the loonies now loose in Congress are doing everything they can to limit energy conservation. The GOP, under the dim-bulb leadership of House Speaker John Boehner, is about as anti-conservation as can be imagined, though he has amazing competition in the idiocy department from other members of his party.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., recently put an amendment into the Energy and Water Appropriations bill forbidding the Department of Energy from enforcing that relatively modest efficiency standard enacted under Bush. Speaking before Congress, she harrumphed, “First, they came for our health care. Then, they took away our lightbulbs, and raided our nation’s most iconic guitar company. Now they are coming after our ceiling fans. Nothing is safe from the Obama administration’s excessive regulatory tentacles.”

Actually, Marsha, nobody came for your health care. You still qualify for the same federal employee health benefits you had before Obamacare began to halfway fix insurance for the rest of us.

And nobody took your lightbulbs either, no matter what that half-wit Bachmann might have screeched. I know you don’t get to the store much, but those inefficient incandescent bulbs are still available if you’re in a mad rush to run up your electric bills.

Our nation’s “most iconic guitar company” was violating international treaties using illegally imported wood from endangered species. It would suit me just fine, as a guitar player, if they would stick to legally obtained domestic trees. Sitka spruce, from your chum Sarah’s home state, is superb for guitar manufacture. And get this, it’s legal!.

And tsk, now the EPA hopes to make ceiling fans a little cheaper to run. I don’t know if you get home to Tennessee much, but there are a whole lot of people out here in the mid-South who can’t pay their bills these days thanks to policies you support. Spending cuts in the wake of a major recession are keeping millions of people unemployed and depressing wages at the same time. Helping those folks cut electric bills wouldn’t amount to a whole lot of aid, but it would be something.

Astonishing as it may be to you, in your lofty perch, most of us aren’t as rich as the fat cats who wine you and dine you and fund your election campaigns. 

I know that thoughts from out here in fly-over country aren’t apt to make it into your bubble world, particularly when you’re surrounded by dim-bulbs without a shred of conscience or concern for the peons who will pay for your mistakes. 

But forget coming for your insurance or your fans, when people are ignored and impoverished for long enough they have been known to come for someone’s head.

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Cecil Bothwell is author of nine books, including the recent novel “She Walks On Water.” He also is a member of Asheville City Council.