Biden’s Gas Stove Ban Is Based on Climate Change, Not Health

After banning kids from attending school for nearly two years, causing immeasurable educational damage, does anyone believe the federal government has suddenly become a crusader for children’s health?

You’d be mistaken if you believe it after reading about a ban being considered by the Biden administration on gas stoves. The common household appliances, they claim, are the root cause of asthma in many children and also are just plain not good for indoor air quality. That may or may not be true, the data is sparse. What is true, however, is that if something can be disguised in the interests of public health while also achieving a climate change goal, then the government’s immediately on board.

If you read the first part of various news reports on the stove ban, it’s couched entirely on public health and indoor air quality.

Take this example from Bloomberg:

A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems.

“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

“There is about 50 years of health studies showing that gas stoves are bad for our health, and the strongest evidence is on children and children’s asthma,” said Brady Seals, a manager in the carbon-free buildings program at the nonprofit clean energy group RMI and a co-author of the study. “By having a gas connection, we are polluting the insides of our homes.”

Why the sudden urgency to ban a common household appliance used in millions of homes? After all, things like smoking cigarettes and cannabis indoors cause poor air quality as well but those products aren’t banned. On the contrary, the expanded use of marijuana is being encouraged.

Isn’t there some irony in the government closing schools under Covid for two years, a move that forced children to stay locked up at home with these evil gas stoves, and now they’re concerned about home indoor air quality?

Deep down, found in the last two paragraphs of the Bloomberg article, you’ll find the real meat of the issue which is where the climate change agenda goals come into play:

Parallel efforts by state and local policymakers are targeting the use of natural gas in buildings more broadly, in a push to reduce climate-warming emissions (such as from methane) that exacerbate climate change. Nearly 100 cities and counties have adopted policies that require or encourage a move away from fossil fuel powered buildings.

Then, there’s this:

Consumers who want to switch from gas to electric ranges could get some help from the massive climate spending bill signed into law in August. The Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $840 for the purchase of new electric ranges as part of some $4.5 billion in funding to help low- and moderate-income households electrify their homes.

How convenient. The “massive climate spending bill,” as Bloomberg calls it, contains a rebate provision of $840 for a new electric range. It’s almost as if the move was planned in advance. Make the money available for people to switch and then eventually ban installing gas stoves in new construction and voila, a ban on gas stoves could be implemented within years, not decades.

As further proof, many analysts are looking at the data used by the CPSC and calling them out:

Sorry @USCPSC, your new study does NOT link gas stoves w/asthma in kids:

1. No children studied in new 'study.'
2. Results not statistically significant.
3. Asthma = allergic disease, but gas stoves emit no allergens.

Debunked: https://t.co/CGKtRGoUvxhttps://t.co/au9PgR4bwm

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) January 10, 2023

There has been a concerted effort to curtail the oil and gas industry by placing harsh regulations on things like new cars and new homes.

Car makers have been under quite enormous pressure since the Obama years to increase their average fleet MPG at the expense of making vehicles consumers actually want to buy. It’s impossible to “ban” a vehicle the government doesn’t like by actually confiscating it. The easier path is to make it harder for consumers to purchase vehicles the government doesn’t like when they begin looking for a replacement.

It’s the same premise now with new home construction. In New York and California, both states have moved to limit or ban the installation of gas appliances in newly built homes. They can’t make you rip out your gas stove or fireplace, but they can prevent new ones from being installed.

The Biden gas stove ban is the same thing but nationwide. The federal government is not coming to confiscate your stove but they will make it harder when you want to remodel your kitchen and realize you can’t install an updated gas stove replacement, you’ll need to switch to electric.

While a nationwide ban seems sort of far off, given the immense backlash, it already is happening in some states as noted.

The federal government will catch up, it’s just a matter of whether it takes them years or decades.