Biden’s Energy Department Is Still Trying to Ban Your Gas Stove

It was all nonsense, they said, pushed by right-wing news outlets.

The proposed gas stove ban in January coming from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and pushed by a few House and Senate Democrats, was just a big misunderstanding according to the White House.

Only, it wasn’t.

In a similar move to the CPSC ban, the Department of Energy (DOE), another unelected regulatory body staffed with green new deal zealots, is now pushing an efficiency standard that would take nearly half of all gas stoves off the market in three years:

The Department of Energy ‘s proposed conservation standards for new cooking devices would remove from the market about half the gas stove models used by consumers, the agency said in a new memo, igniting fresh controversy over the popular household appliance.

In its filing, the department noted that just 40% of gas stoves in the U.S. today would meet the criteria outlined in the proposed rule , which seeks to increase energy efficiency and reduce indoor air pollution generated by the popular appliance.

That means that at least half of U.S. stoves would not be eligible for repurchase in stores if the rule were to come into force today, the department said.

“Every major manufacturer has products that meet or exceed the requirements proposed … including nearly 50% of the current gas cooktop market that will not be impacted by this proposal,” a department official told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

Unsurprisingly, this revelation would fly in the face of White House claims that neither the President nor his administration is engaged in any effort to curtail the use of gas appliances.

Even in this case, they are splitting hairs to point out that this move by the DOE isn’t a “ban” for all intents and purposes, it’s merely an update to efficiency standards. The update, of course, will mean that many current gas stoves will become obsolete and no longer available for purchase.

Some say the DOE rule is worse than the proposal would admit. According to an analysis from Sen. Steve Daines, of Montana, only around four percent of existing stoves on the market would meet the new criteria, a point the DOE has conceded:

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., warned in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm this week that regulations recently proposed by her agency would ban up to 96% of the gas-powered stoves currently available to Americans.

Daines noted in the letter sent Wednesday that the Department of Energy (DOE) itself acknowledges that just 4% of the current gas stove market share would meet the stringent rules governing the efficiency levels of gas stoves, effectively banning the vast majority of products being sold. The DOE issued the proposed rule on Feb. 1, shortly after the Biden administration was slammed for appearing to move ahead with a gas stove ban.

The fallacy here is that somehow when the government gets involved and starts putting its thumb on the scale, consumers will win. There will be announced tax incentives to purchase new gas appliances and those appliances will likely cost more than twice as much as previous models. Furthermore, with constrained supply chain problems, tossing out 96% of existing stove models will create more delays and backorders for gas appliances.

In the end, the rules have little to do with indoor air quality and almost entirely stem from climate change policy goals. It’s already the stated goal of this administration to remove gasoline-powered cars from roads. This is a similar effort to remove gas-powered appliances from inside homes as well.

The fact that the Biden administration has been so evasive over the issue demonstrates an acknowledgment of how unpopular such a move to limit gas stove use would inevitably be.