Yes, the Biden administration really is coming for your gas stove. And on Tuesday, Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas voted to help it do so.
Both New Hampshire Democrats voted against the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, a bill to protect Americans’ ability to choose the type of stove they want in their kitchen. Despite their opposition, it passed the House with a bipartisan 248-180 majority.
“The Biden administration is intent on weaponizing every aspect of the federal government to achieve its ideological goals,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), the bill’s author. “Consumer protection should be about safety, not used as a veiled push to eliminate fossil fuels and the millions of jobs they support. Americans should decide if gas stoves are right for their families, not the federal government. I’m glad to see this commonsense bill to rein in the administration pass the House.”
The Biden White House issued a statement claiming that while “it does not support any attempt to ban the use of gas stoves,” Biden will veto legislation stripping the administration of the power to ban them.
Neither Kuster nor Pappas would answer questions about their votes.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 41 percent of Granite State households rely on natural gas or propane for heat, edging out heating oil at 40 percent. Across the nation, there are some 45 million gas stoves and ovens, and 187 million households use natural gas, according to the American Gas Association.
And they like it, too. A 2021 national Morning Consult poll found, “When it comes to the choice between natural gas and electricity for cooking, natural gas is still the favored choice: 73 percent of respondents who prefer to keep their gas stoves said they’ve used both and electric ‘did not work as well as gas alternatives.’”
But climate change activists have targeted natural gas in general and gas stoves in particular.
In January, the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) chair Richard Trumka said a ban on gas stoves and ranges is “on the table,” a statement that sparked immediate backlash. Even President Joe Biden felt the need to disavow his appointee’s statement. But newly-uncovered emails show the White House had been discussing restrictions on gas appliances with the CPSC months before the announcement.
And the Biden Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing new regulations on gas stoves that, according to a nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report, would keep about half of the current gas stove models off the market.
“In assessing the conversion itself, DOE conducted a market survey and sampled 21 units currently on the market, finding 20 would not comply with the proposed standard without conversion of the equipment,” the Service reported.
“The Biden administration has unleashed two agencies – the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Energy – to go after gas stoves, despite the fact that the American people overwhelmingly prefer to decide for themselves what to put in their kitchens,” said Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “It is up to the Senate to carry out the will of the people and send freedom of choice to President Biden’s desk.”
The effort to ban gas stoves has also picked up at the state and local levels.
The state of New York has banned new natural gas hookups beginning in most buildings by 2026.
In Massachusetts, “a group of progressive Democratic lawmakers has filed proposals requiring the state to draft regulations restricting gas ranges and other appliances in new construction.”
The attorneys general of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York have signed a letter demanding that the federal government crackdown on gas stoves.
And the Biden administration filed a joint brief in federal court on Monday supporting Berkeley, Calif.’s ban on natural gas in new buildings that was struck down in federal court.
New Hampshire has a state law protecting consumer choice and access to natural gas hookups. But the federal government could always choose to supersede those rules. That was why the House passed federal legislation.
“It’s no secret that extreme Democrats like Chris Pappas want to control every facet of American life: from what we drive, to what we learn, and now how we cook,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman Savannah Viar. “These extreme control freaks have no concept of the real problems facing everyday Americans, so they’re inventing new ones instead.”
