Joe Biden Is Thinking About Banning Your Gas Stove
The Biden Administration is considering a ban on gas stoves.
A federal agency says gas stoves are linked to serious health conditions like cancer and childhood asthma.
Gas stoves are also a greenhouse gas contributor.
When things are going well, people will often say, “now we’re cooking with gas.” President Joe Biden’s administration would like to consider a different choice of words.
On Monday, an agency commissioner with the U.S. Consumer Product and Safety Commission (CPSC) told Bloomberg that a ban on gas stoves in homes is “on the table,” citing the appliance’s link to serious health conditions such as respiratory illness, cancer, and childhood asthma. “This is a hidden hazard,” commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg, “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
The CPSC (whose Twitter is famously excellent) clarified in a statement that the agency currently has no official proposal to ban gas stoves, but that its staff “plans to start gathering data and perspectives from the public on potential hazards associated with gas stoves, and proposed solutions to those hazards later this year.” With an estimated 40 percent of homes relying on gas stoves, the CPSC says any regulation of these devices would be “a lengthy process.”
But the problem with gas stoves isn’t just health issues. The appliance is also a greenhouse gas contributor as commercial and residential buildings account for 13 percent of heat-trapping gas emissions, most of which comes from gas appliances.
The CPSC’s ban consideration is the latest salvo in a years-long battle over the controversial appliance. In 2019, Berkeley, California, became the first city in the U.S. to ban gas appliances, including furnaces, stoves, and ovens, in new commercial and residential buildings. Other cities in California as well as New York City and Seattle soon followed suit.
In a sign of the times, Republican-controlled legislatures in 20 states went in the opposite direction and passed what’s known as “preemption laws” to prohibit cities in their states from passing similar measures. While gas advocates argue that gas appliance health concerns are miniscule compared to other things like cigarettes, environmental law experts tell CNN that banning gas stoves is “low-hanging fruit” in humanity’s battle with climate change. A CPSC ban would be a game changer in that a federal ban would supersede all of this state-level drama (though a protracted legal battle is all but a certainty).
It’s unclear exactly what a federal ban would look like as the CPSC is only now gathering information, but if it follows laws already passed in many U.S. cities, the ban would likely put the kibosh on gas appliances in any new residential or commercial building.
As for the millions of gas stoves out there already, the Biden Administration has a plan for that. As people begin hunting for new stoves (with many websites suggesting you should make the switch anyway) the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act offers up to $840 in rebates to entice those on the fence.
For now, gas stoves are safe from federal regulation, but those arguing for a ban are now, ironically, “cooking with gas.”
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