The Biden administration claimed the need to ban gas stoves “reached a boiling point” before the conversation really got heated.
In January, Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), triggered an avalanche of headlines when he told Bloomberg News, “any option is on the table” regarding gas stove regulation.
“Products that can’t be safe can be banned,” Trumka said.
The comment draws on left-wing myths that gas stoves are a primary source of respiratory problems through indoor emissions. Such claims, however, have nothing to do with science and everything to do with radical climate activism.
Corporate outlets jumped to downplay the administration’s threat after public outcry forced the White House to backtrack such regulations.
“The president does not support banning gas stoves,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves. I just want to be very clear on that.”
“No, Biden Is Not Trying to Ban Gas Stoves,” read a headline from the New York Times that was later changed to “Ban Gas Stoves? Just the Idea Gets Some in Washington Boiling.”
Other outlets framed conservatives as the aggressors even as nearly 100 cities have already banned the gas appliance. Another 20 states are considering similar regulations, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Republicans turn up the heat on a new culture war target: gas stoves,” read a headline from the Guardian.
“What the right’s gas stove freakout was really about,” read another in Politico.
The legacy network of fact-checkers also kicked into high gear. Snopes and the Associated Press each rated claims the Biden administration was taking aim at Americans’ gas stoves as “false.”
The chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Alex Hoehn-Saric, also tried to play down the administration’s potential gas stove ban after Trumka’s comments ignited controversy.
“I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” Hoehn-Saric said in a statement.
A memo published by Fox News in February, however, shows federal regulators were far more serious about efforts to ban the gas appliance.
“The need for gas stove regulation has reached a boiling point,” Trumka wrote in an October memo. “CPSC has the responsibility to ban consumer products that emit hazardous substances, particularly, when those emissions harm children, under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.”
“There is sufficient information available for CPSC to issue an NPR in FY 2023 proposing to ban gas stoves in homes,” he added. “The additional work needed to complete an NPR is primarily economic; the available health and scientific evidence on illnesses caused by the relevant gasses at the concentrations present in homes with gas stoves already exists.”
Emissions from the food cooked, however, are 11 times higher than the gas on the stove. Studies purporting to show dangerous emission levels from gas stoves examine aerial pollutants in enclosed spaces without ventilation.
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