WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is once again venturing into the country’s culture wars, enacting legislation that GOP lawmakers say would protect gas stoves from overzealous state regulators.
A bill passed on Tuesday would ban the use of federal funds to regulate gas ranges as a hazardous product, while a separate bill due for a vote on Wednesday would block an Energy Department rule setting stricter energy efficiency standards for cooktops and ovens.
Both bills were due for passage last week, but implementation was delayed after House Conservatives staged a mini-revolt in retaliation for Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership on a measure to raise the debt ceiling. Led by outspoken members of the House Freedom Caucus, 11 Republicans broke with their party in an otherwise routine procedural vote that rattled the House schedule for a full week.
McCarthy appeared to settle the dispute late Monday after promising more meetings with GOP holdouts and seeking to cut future federal spending.
With the impasse resolved, Republican lawmakers refocused on gas stoves and bureaucratic rules that Republicans call classic government transgression.
“For the hard-working Americans who will be affected, this is no small concern,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “The last thing they need is for the Biden administration’s Green New Deal regulatory assault to reach their kitchen appliances.”
The bill to classify gas stoves as dangerous was passed by a vote of 248-180.
The White House said President Joe Biden opposed both GOP bills because they blocked “common sense efforts to help Americans reduce their energy bills.” Neither bill is expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Dozens of Democrat-controlled cities, including San Francisco and Berkeley, California, have voted to ban the use of gas stoves in new buildings in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve indoor air quality. New York State passed legislation last month banning natural gas stoves and ovens in most new buildings.
Fears of a national ban grew after a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in January that “every option is on the table” when it comes to regulating gas stoves, which are associated with poor indoor air quality and health concerns such as asthma to be connected. The remark sparked images across the internet of the government lugging four-burner cooktops out of homes, while social media users and GOP lawmakers vowed to defend the popular appliances.
The debate flared up again after the Department of Energy proposed a rule that would require the use of more efficient designs and technologies for both gas and electric ranges and cooktops.
According to an analysis by the Department of Energy, the Department of Energy rule, which is yet to be finalized, could ban about half of the gas stove models currently sold in the United States by 2027. The rule would only apply to new appliance sales and would not affect cookers already in homes or businesses.
House Energy and Trade Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, called the US Department of Energy’s plan “just the latest in a long line of power grabs by the far left and the Biden administration.”
The rule is “not about public safety. It’s about telling the American people that the federal government knows best and will decide what kind of car they can drive, how they can heat their home, and how they can now cook food for their families,” said McMorris Rodgers.
Forcing Americans to switch to more expensive alternatives to natural gas would increase costs while disproportionately harming the poor and low-income families, she said.
Democrats called these concerns exaggerated.
“This is nothing more than a conspiracy theory invented to embroil Congress in culture wars that shed more excitement than light on the issues facing our nation,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pennsylvania.
“Contrary to the heated rhetoric of our colleagues on the other side, the federal government has not proposed removing devices from American homes,” Scanlon said. The Department of Energy’s proposed rule would save consumers up to $1.7 billion and reduce emissions harmful to children’s health, she added.
The bill, which blocks regulation of unsafe gas stoves, jeopardizes the government’s ability to identify and regulate appliances with design flaws that could lead to injury or death, Scanlon said, noting that the consumer safety panel recently recalled gas stove models consumers are at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
An Energy Department spokeswoman said the proposed rule was “intended to do nothing more than increase energy efficiency and encourage innovation without sacrificing the reliability and performance that Americans have come to expect.”
The White House said the government has “made it clear that it does not support any attempt to ban the use of gas stoves.”
Getting rid of the energy efficiency rule would “deprive the American people of the savings they have with more efficient new appliances on the market if they choose to replace an existing appliance,” the White House said in a statement while it supported the other bill agreed. would undermine the science-based decision making of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
