Because buying a crapton of expensive battery-powered mail trucks, jacking up the rate of home heating units by imposing cumbersome new “efficiency” regulations, and spending trillions of cash we don’t have on global “green” initiatives weren’t all bad enough, the Biden administration is reportedly mulling over a ban on gas stoves in its latest leftist attempt to meddle in your life.
For your own good, of course.
Even as millions of Americans struggle to heat their homes this winter thanks to rising gas and oil prices (which are ticking back up post-Christmas, by the by), the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission - have fun finding that one in the Constitution - is opening up public comment to the supposed evils of home pollution created by gas stoves, the goal being either to slap burdensome new rules on the production of new appliances, or potentially ban them altogether.
The argument is that gas stoves, which are used in about 40 percent of all U.S. homes, put off harmful stuff like nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide (hint? Just turn on your fan). But even setting aside the fact that electric-powered appliances also put off stuff that’s not exactly great for breathing, rather than simply letting the general populace know about it and allowing them to choose for themselves what kind of stovetop they want to cook on, the government is taking it upon itself to consider banning the machines in the name of keeping people safe from their own free choices.
Even more immediately concerning is the fact that for the nearly half of all Americans who use gas ranges, any ban that grandfathers in currently existing stoves would still leave homeowners unable to buy a new gas appliance should their old one break down, forcing them to switch to an electric unit and leaving them on the hook for hundreds of dollars to pay an electrician to make the swap (and that's on top of the cost of a new machine).
Understandably less than enamored about the proposed ban, the American Gas Association noted in a statement that the self-aggrandizing federal Bureau on Stuff Safety, headed up by unelected bureaucrats who literally get paid gobs of taxpayer cash to find new things to regulate, doesn’t even list gas ranges as a problem in their publicly available documents - which you’d think they’d do, if gas stoves were such a deadly hazard.
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“The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and EPA do not present gas ranges as a significant contributor to adverse air quality or health hazard in their technical or public information literature, guidance, or requirements,” Karen Harbert, the group’s president, told the outlet. “The most practical, realistic way to achieve a sustainable future where energy is clean, as well as safe, reliable and affordable, is to ensure it includes natural gas and the infrastructure that transports it.”
But, of course, protecting “public health” is almost always a smokescreen for exerting power and expanding government control over the private sector, a game one top U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission official gave away in a statement during a recent virtual news conference on the subject where he floated the idea of an outright ban used as an outright threat against gas stove manufacturers who don’t support regulations.
“I think we ought to keep that possibility of a ban in mind, because it’s a powerful tool in our tool belt,” Commissioner Richard Trumka said during the meeting.
“A powerful tool in our belt.”
Translation? “Surrender to the government's demands, or we’ll ruin you.”