After repeatedly denying its intention to formally ban natural gas stoves, the Department of Energy Federal Register Final rule covers kitchen appliances.
Critics from Congress to energy advocacy groups have slammed the new rules, which administration officials have long denied amounted to a ban.
But Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said it still achieved the “triple crown of bad regulation.”
“It’s ineffective, unnecessary and likely illegal,” Pyle said, acknowledging that the administration had watered down the original policy drafted for 2023.
Biden Administration Rolls Back Gas Stove Crackdown After Widespread Backlash
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“After facing intense backlash when they moved to ban gas stoves, the Biden-Harris administration settled on this rule, claiming it would lower costs for families. Of course, what they don’t say is that their so-called savings are only 21 cents per year.”
Pyle said that if Democrats remain in power, the rule will be “just a down payment” on future regulatory overreach that seeks to regulate mundane aspects of daily life, such as cooking.
“The American consumer [are] “Customers are more than capable of choosing the appliance that best suits their needs,” he said.
But the Department of Energy defended the regulations, including arguing that it had been vague on the matter.
A spokesman said the rules published in the Federal Register mirror regulations devised earlier this year, and that the final rules have the backing of groups such as the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.
“We have worked with industry for decades to make appliances more efficient, helping Americans save money,” an Energy Department spokesman said.
“If you cut through the misleading rhetoric, you’ll see that our appliance standards efforts are solely intended to spur innovation and increase energy efficiency without sacrificing the reliability and performance Americans expect and rely on,” they said.
But lawmakers, who have sought to ease “bans” and restrictions on appliances and other devices that require fossil fuel power, were not convinced of the benefits of the new rules.
In 2023, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) successfully drafted an amendment to an energy bill that would prohibit Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s department from enforcing the original energy standards for countertops.
“If implemented, these strict rules would mean the phase-out of 50 to 95 percent of today’s gas appliances,” Newhouse said at the time.
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President Biden. (Getty Images)
“Gas appliances are the heart of the American home. They power stoves, furnaces, water heaters and fireplaces,” he said, calling natural gas “affordable, reliable and safe.”
A spokesman for Newhouse said Thursday that his efforts were the “leading factor” in reversing the original rule and revising it to its current form.
“While the new rules will still require rigorous oversight from Congress, they will prevent states like California and Washington from implementing sweeping and extreme rules that are completely unreasonable for consumers and producers, and would only pave the way for other states to follow suit,” the spokesperson said.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-D., who passed the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act in the House but has been stalled in the Senate for a year, called the new posted rules “incredibly frustrating and unrealistic.”
“Americans are concerned about the fentanyl crisis that is crippling communities, and many are worried about being able to feed their families and put food on the table. Instead of considering the urgent needs of so many Americans, the administration has chosen to prioritize a gas stove attack to appease climate extremists,” Armstrong said, adding that this shows the administration wants to control every aspect of life.
Ryan Walker, vice president of Heritage Action for America, said the Department of Energy is “demonizing natural gas” even though it is cheap and clean-burning.
“After claiming they had no plans to ban gas stoves, the Biden-Harris Administration has rammed through new regulations that could overprice a hugely popular appliance and put it out of existence,” Walker said, adding, “The left only cares about virtue signaling and pandering to their radical base, not about hardworking Americans trying to make a living and put food on the table. The next conservative administration can and should reverse the Biden-Harris Administration’s crackdown on appliances.”
Democrats who have vocally opposed Republican deregulation efforts or supported such rules did not respond to the news.
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Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.). (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“House Republicans are once again putting polluters over people,” Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (DNJ), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said of efforts to block such regulations in 2023.
Pallone did not respond to a request for comment.
So did Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pennsylvania). Previously Cost-related concerns about moving Americans away from natural gas are “conspiracy theories concocted to embroil Congress in a culture war that casts more heat than light on the issues facing our country.”
Philadelphia lawmakers said at the time that the proposed rules would save consumers a total of $1.7 billion in 2023.
But one longtime Democrat spoke out against the initial draft of the 2023 rules, with Sen. Joe Manchin (Ind.-West Virginia) saying the federal government “has no right to tell American families how to make dinner.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report..
