Last December, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Richard Trumpka, Jr., issued a memorandum stating:
“We need to be talking about regulating gas stoves, whether that’s drastically improving emissions or banning gas stoves entirely. And I think we ought to keep that possibility of a ban in mind, because it’s a powerful tool in our tool belt and it’s a real possibility here.”
The memo said that the CPSC would begin soliciting information from the public in March, and the ban could happen during 2023.
Commissioner Trumka’s comments met with immediate push back from Republican lawmakers. In a joint letter with other Senate Republicans, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-W.Va.) wrote to the CPSC:
“[O]ver one-third of U.S. households use gas stoves. Consumers have chosen their home appliances based on numerous factors, including upfront price, operating costs, maintenance costs, and convenience. Gas stoves tend to result in lower utility bills than their electric counterparts. Gas stoves are also generally more durable, with less parts being susceptible to breakages or other defects. A ban on these stoves would therefore likely result in higher utility bills, disproportionately affecting low-income populations,” Lummis’ Jan. 19 letter stated.
White House spokespeople have stated that Biden “does not support banning gas stoves,” adding that the CPSC, “which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.” But of course the CPSC is very much considering banning gas stoves, and Commissioner Trumpka seems to favor just such a ban. “The need for gas stove regulation has reached a boiling point,” Trumpka punned in a statement.
“CPSC has the responsibility to ban consumer products that emit hazardous substances, particularly, when those emissions harm children, under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. There is sufficient information available for CPSC to issue an NPR [Notice of Proposed Rule-making] in FY 2023 proposing to ban gas stoves in homes.”
And the CPSC is not the only Biden administration agency that has trained its sights on gas stoves. On February 1st, the Department of Energy proposed a rule that could outlaw an estimated fifty percent of all gas stoves.
Now the CPSC has issued a formal request for information about the possible health hazards of gas-powered stoves. The request for information is preparatory to issuing a regulation. The request can be viewed here. It has already received hundreds of comments. The comment period ends May 8.
The request states that it is seeking input and “proposed solutions” from stakeholders such as “consumers, manufacturers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and researchers on chronic chemical hazards associated with the use of gas ranges.”
Proposed Ban Based on Radical Environmentalist “Research”
The CPSC’s astonishingly radical move to ban gas stoves is based upon a “peer-reviewed article” that claimed to trace 12.7% of childhood asthma to exposure to gas stoves.
That paper was authored in part by researchers with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a radical environmentalist think-tank wholly dedicated to banning fossil fuels and transitioning the world to “renewable” energy sources. It focuses on creating an entirely “carbon-free” economy.
The so-called “study” consists of nine (9) paragraphs and is based on a hodgepodge of different methodologies and data spanning various years and countries, ranging from 2019 U.S. Census data to conclusions from a 2018 analysis in Australia.
Dr. Harvey Risch, a Yale University professor of medicine, stated, “This paper does not do any research on possible [causal] association between residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma.” Brady Seals, one of the authors of the paper, admitted to the Washington Examiner that the paper, “does not assume or estimate a causal relationship” between childhood asthma and gas stoves.
Risch pointed out that the study was ethically dubious, in that its authors disclosed no conflicts of interest despite working for climate change activist groups. The Rocky Mountain Institute’s board of directors, for example, is filled with executives at green energy corporations who have a very strong financial interest in banning the use of fossil fuels.
The paper was not even written by scientists; it was written by climate-change activists. According to the Washington Free Beacon:
In addition to the Rocky Mountain Institute's green energy biases, the nonprofit's lead authors on the study hold no formal advanced scientific training or education. Talor Gruenwald, who works as a researcher at the group, holds a Master’s in International Affairs. Brady Seals, who heads the institute's “Carbon-Free Buildings” program, graduated with an Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of South Dakota
Talor Gruenwald’s “Greenbiz” page states:
Talor Gruenwald provides quantitative analysis and policy research in support of eliminating fossil fuel use in buildings. He is working on the development of a Trans-Atlantic campaign on building electrification, identifying viable policy solutions that apply to both European countries and U.S. states alike. He brings a diverse set of experiences to RMI. Talor has worked with international NGOs on sustainable economic development of underserved communities in Colombia, developed decarbonization pathways for the electricity sector in Baja California, Mexico, and most recently supported efforts in California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment in coordination with investor-owned utilities.
Brady Seals is described on her RMI page as:
Brady Seals is a Manager in RMI’s Carbon-Free Buildings program where she works at the junction of air quality, buildings, and human health. She engages stakeholders in rapidly transitioning to clean energy solutions that deliver environmental, health, and economic benefits. Brady comes to RMI with a decade of renewable energy experience within the global household energy sector. Her interest in energy access began at a nonprofit promoting biofuels-based cookstoves. She has commercialized clean technologies and fuels by directing programs within the nonprofit and corporate sectors in more than 16 countries. Brady most recently worked as a consultant advising nonprofits, corporations, and multinationals on energy impact strategies and investments. Throughout her career, she has contributed to several research efforts to study, quantify, and communicate the climate and health benefits of air pollution-mitigating technologies and strategies.
It is beyond scandalous that anyone in the U.S. Government takes this sort of nonsense seriously, much less would actually consider forcibly remodeling millions of American kitchens on the basis of it. But that, sadly, is how American government now works: NGO-based Leftist radicals produce nonsense agitation papers that radicals within the government, such as Richard Trumpka, Jr., use as a basis for ever more draconian, high-handed regulation of the American citizen.
Unsurprisingly, RMI is heavily involved with the Chinese Communist Party. “In China, we partner with the government to help the nation profitably surpass its existing national energy and emissions targets,” RMI’s website states.
A CCP investor, Wei Ding, the founder and chairman of the Chinese private equity firm Broad River Capital, sits on RMI’s board of directors. Ding started the firm after serving as chairman of the China International Capital Corporation (CICC), a partially state-owned investment bank. Former CICC executives include Chinese leader Xi Jinping's vice president and right-hand man, Wang Qishan, while the corporation's website highlights its “deep participation in China's economic reforms and development” and goal to “serve the nation.” The Rocky Mountain Institute also sits on the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a Chinese green energy nonprofit whose founding members include China's National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Transport.
But of course China is not backing away from fossil fuels. Just the opposite: last year China opened an average of two new coal-fired power plants every week, and just last month China entered into a deal with Gazprom, a Russian natural gas company, to purchase 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, the total output of a dedicate pipeline.
China well understands that fossil fuels are the path to national wealth and power, and further understands that if it can get the United States to foolishly abandon fossil fuels, it can easily overtake and destroy its sole global rival.
The Marxist radicals running the “Biden Administration” are ideologically aligned with the CCP in the goal of destroying the United States. Biden might or might not have sufficient residual cognitive ability to understand what it is going on, but China long since took the precaution of buying him off by giving his family millions of dollars, of which the “big guy” always got his cut.
Recalcitrant Republicans (or at least enough of them) can usually be bribed with China’s slush funds of billions of dollars of bribe money to go along with the Democrats.
The American Gas Association issued a statement that the RMI study was “not substantiated by sound science.”
“The authors conducted no measurements or tests based on real-life appliance usage, and ignored literature, including one study of more than 500,000 children in 47 countries that ‘detected no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis'.”
Among those pushing back against this self-destructive lunacy is Senator J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), who has called on the CPSC to renounce any potential gas-stove ban, saying that he is alarmed by RMI’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The natural gas industry, Vance said, “is critical to our national security,” and its demise would be a boost to our adversary.
“Who benefits from all this? Communist China. I think it's time for the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to answer some questions before Congress—under oath."
The vast forests buried in the earth at the time of the Flood, and since changed to coal, form the extensive coal fields, and yield the supplies of oil that minister to our comfort and convenience today. Education, p. 129.