Yes Virginia they are coming after your gas stoves.Yes, it’s real: Joe Biden’s Department of Energy just moved to ban nearly all gas stoves.
The legacy media and the Left attempted to brush off the initial gas stove controversy and outcry from the Right as nothing more than an unsubstantiated, irrational conspiracy theory. The White House even insisted that President Joe Biden does not support a ban on gas stoves after one of his federal consumer safety officials suggested that such a ban was on the table.
But, as we are seeing in so many other instances, Republicans were right all along. President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy is, in fact, pushing an extreme regulation that would effectively eliminate nearly all gas stoves.
The Department of Energy is conducting this gas stove grab through a rule that would impose extreme energy performance standards on residential cooktops. The department’s proposed rule sets requirements for gas cooktops at the maximum technologically feasible or “max-tech” level. Based on the Department of Energy’s own analysis, gas cooktops at the max-tech level represent just 4% of current market share and exclude all conventional free-stand ranges.
Any rule that causes 96% of the products available today to be eliminated from the market is an extreme regulation. In fact, it is essentially an outright ban on gas stoves.
With this latest rush-to-green policy, the Department of Energy has also failed to take consumer preference into consideration when it comes to gas stove design. To accommodate the DOE’s proposed standards, manufacturers are going to have to make dramatic design changes that result in smaller burners and longer cooking times, as well as smaller grates that could be less stable. Consumers in the kitchen are unlikely to approve of these changes.
Comically, Biden’s Department of Energy is justifying this proposed requirement based on estimated savings to the consumer for gas cooktops of $21.89 over the next 14.5 years, which equates to a savings of just $1.50 per year. People are not willing to trade such substantially decreased functionality and features for minuscule savings.
Once again, the Biden administration proves it is out of touch with the average American.
This radical proposal from the Department of Energy is open for public comment. The public should tell the Biden administration to keep their hands off gas stoves. Comments can be submitted via Regulations.gov through April 3, 2023.
Debbie Lesko is the representative for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District and serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
