GAS STOVE BAN JUST HOT AIR, RIGHT?
When the story came across Fox News, you might have been tempted to just blow it off, because it came across Fox News. It happens often enough: Somebody hinted at something about something else or shrugged off a minor question, and it turned into a marathon on cable’s hyperbole channel. Except … .
When we flipped the channel, the story also came across on CNN. And then we saw it on the wires. And the news magazines. And (gulp) the newspapers. This is real.
A federal agency is considering banning gas stoves.
As if there aren’t other things that the federal government needs to be doing, a commissioner with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission told Bloomberg (the first place to break the news) that gas stoves can be a “hidden hazard” and can cause health problems in households that use them. The agency is considering a ban.
“Any option is on the table,” Commissioner Richard Trumka told Bloomberg. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
Apparently, the commission has been considering “action” on gas stoves since the fall. But this is the first we’ve heard of it.
Several cities in California and at least one in Massachusetts have passed zoning codes “encouraging or requiring” new buildings to use all-electric devices, according to USA Today. “The codes, most of them passed since June, are meant to keep builders from running natural gas lines to new homes and apartments, with an eye toward creating fewer legacy gas hookups as the nation shifts to carbon-neutral energy sources.”
Okay, that’s California and Massachusetts. They do nutty things in California and Massachusetts. But a federal ban would include all of the several states.
Natural gas stoves — especially those that aren’t properly ventilated — do indeed cause health problems for some people. But those people are free to use electric stoves, and probably do. Some folks enjoy cooking on gas stoves because when gas stoves are off, they are off. It doesn’t take several minutes, or even a second, for the heating element to cool. (And you aren’t as likely to burn the roux.)
But, once again, we are reminded that the electricity that comes out of the wall has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere, in the United States, is largely from coal-fired plants. It’s hard to understand how forcing Americans to go to all-electric cooking will save the planet in the near-term.
Thankfully, not everybody has been taken by surprise by this federal agency:
“Ventilation is really where this discussion should be, rather than banning one particular type of technology,” Jill Notini, a vice president with the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, told Bloomberg. “Banning one type of a cooking appliance is not going to address the concerns about overall indoor air quality. We may need some behavior change, we may need [people] to turn on their hoods when cooking.”
More than a third of U.S. homes use natural gas stoves. Chefs prefer them, even if it’s the family chef who goes by Mom or Dad. And as compared to a coal plant, it’s a clean fuel.
There are other problems the feds should focus on now: Inflation, immigration, tax legislation, and a million others.
This is what is called an unforced error. Somebody higher up in government needs to tell this agency to go look for a real problem to solve.