Free Republic

New York’s leaders are doubling down in their fight against gas stoves. A vocal group of legislators, doctors and scientists is imploring Gov. Kathy Hochul to pass the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition Act — just months after Hochul’s controversial move to ban gas stoves, furnaces and propane heating in new residential buildings in the Empire State. During a virtual press conference this week, the agitated assemblage presented a report bolstering the argument against any kind of gas-powered appliances, period. A bill floated by the group would effectively allow the decommission of natural gas pipelines and plants and expedite the...

A senior Biden administration official responsible for overseeing a new rule that would push households to purchase electric stoves over cheaper gas-powered stoves said that she does not know how an electric stove is installed during testimony before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Energy Policy, Economic Growth, and Regulatory Affairs on Tuesday. The Department of Energy (DOE) on Feb. 1 published a proposed federal regulation that would require millions of household gas stoves in the United States to be modified for “energy efficiency,” according to the rule’s text, which has provoked an outcry from Republicans. In testimony before the subcommittee,...

State and local governments are moving forward with bans on gas stoves in new residences.In May, the Democrat-controlled New York State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul inked a $229 billion state budget agreement that included a ban on residential gas stoves. By 2029, only electric ranges will be allowed in new residences. The policy is similar to bans imposed by local governments in places such as New York City and California. Advocates say those laws help curtail climate change by reducing natural gas consumption and protect people's health by reducing in-home emissions. Opponents who cited studies finding no causal link...

Palo Alto, California, administrators have exempted a celebrity chef’s restaurant from the city’s sweeping gas stove ban. Jose Andres’ newly planned restaurant, Zaytinya, is one of the latest Simon Property Group (SPG) buildings that received project approval in 2019, including for a a gas line, which the restaurant relies on, according to Palo Alto Online. The plan, however, changed when planning staff informed the company that due to the City Council’s revision of the building code, the restaurant was required to use electric stoves. Simon wrote a letter in April threatening the city council with a lawsuit if it maintained...

ALBANY, NY — Lawmakers in New York have taken action to ban the use of gas stoves in residential buildings after newly discovered footage revealed a gas stove participating in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Building riot. "We have to root out this type of extremism wherever we find it," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul. "These types of stoves not only cause damage to our environment but we now have proof that they stand with enemies of the United States. These stoves must be banned to save our planet and democracy itself." The footage which was shown only...

MOSCOW — After an attempted drone strike assassination on the Kremlin this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed swift retaliatory action, beginning with a targeted misgendering of U.S. Admiral Rachel Levine. "This Ukrainian attempt to assassinate me using American drones and American missiles is an egregious breach of international law, and it will not go unanswered. So today I am announcing that Rachel Levine is a man," said Putin angrily. "This is but a taste of the destructive power Russia will unleash on the West." "Imagine what might happen to your armed forces once they're all made to feel less...

A federal appeals court on Monday overturned Berkeley, California's first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas in new construction, agreeing with restaurant owners who argued the city bypassed federal energy regulations when it approved the ordinance. The measure, which took effect in 2020 to cheers from environmentalists, was intended to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming. With some exceptions, it banned new residential and commercial buildings from installing natural gas piping in favor of electrical lines. Thelawsuit by the California Restaurant Association claimed the regulation violated federal law that gives the U.S. government authority to set energy-efficiency standards...

When progressives can’t pass their agenda through the front door in Congress, they sneak it through a regulatory back window. That’s what the Biden Administration is doing with gas stoves, as the Energy Department this week proposed new rules that amount to a gradual de facto ban. A Biden appointee on the Consumer Product Safety Commission ignited a firestorm last month by threatening to ban gas stoves. After criticism from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and others, the CPSC chairman rejected the idea, and White House officials said they didn’t support banning gas stoves. Then why has the Energy Department...

After news broke last week that the Biden administration was floating new regulations on indoor air pollution from gas stoves, both sides of the very online culture warriors took their habitual corners. It was an annoying week-long discourse to be sure, but something worse than annoying also happened. Many corporate media news consumers, parents in particular, began taking the alleged threat of a gas stove in their homes seriously as they devoured and shared headlines like WaPo’s “Gas stove pollution causes 12.7% of childhood asthma,” and The New York Times’ “Your Gas Stove May Be Killing You. How Much Should...

The news that the federal government is seriously considering a ban on the sale of gas stoves caught many normal Americans off guard. It shouldn’t have. Nor should they believe it when a regulator says they won’t actually ever ban the thing. In recent decades, regulators have wormed their way into every corner of our lives – banning some products, ruining others, and pricing others out of reach of working families – all allegedly for our benefit. The only thing that’s surprising is that they hadn’t targeted gas stoves earlier. This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Commissioner Richard Trumka...

A sign of the media times is how quickly our leading progressive organs rally to deny that Democrats are doing what Democrats really are doing. A classic example was this week’s flare up in the coming climate war over banning gas stoves. A Biden appointee on the Consumer Product Safety Commission explicitly threatened to ban gas stoves based on dubious evidence of public-health harm. “This is a hidden hazard,” said commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” We and others criticized the idea, and the media response was...

A federal ‘safety agency’ is considering a ban on gas-powered stoves amid fears of ‘harmful pollutants.’ The US Consumer Product Safety Commission said gas-powered stoves are a ‘hidden health hazard.’

No way in hell you are going to put a wok on an electric stove.”That was Steven Lee, a San Francisco official and restaurant investor, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle last year after the city’s Board of Supervisors voted to outlaw natural gas in new buildings.Nevertheless, they persisted. Per the Sierra Club, the quickening campaign to phase out natural gas recently notched its 50th city-level win in California alone. (Take a bow, Encinitas!) No. 50, as with some others, has “situational exemptions” for restaurants and the like, but the overall push to compel an all-electric design for homes...