People are getting incredibly hot under the collar over a gas stove ban that isn’t even happening.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced in mid-December that it was considering health regulations on gas stoves for the first time ever, following a report that gas ranges were responsible for almost 13 percent of childhood asthma cases. But the debate really boiled over this week after Richard Trumka, a CPSC commissioner, told Bloomberg the agency was considering banning gas stoves.
Trumka has since clarified that the agency will not forcibly take anyone’s gas stove, but will instead seek to decrease the associated health hazards, including by implementing regulations on new products. President Joe Biden has also said that he does not support a ban on gas stoves.
Still, the reactions have been heated, to say the least, and utterly out of proportion.
Representative Ronny Jackson, an actual physician who opposed masking to protect against Covid-19 and said former President Donald Trump could live to be 200, tweeted that the CPSC can pry his gas stove “from my cold dead hands.” He also shared a petition to “Save the Stoves.”
Representative Mark Alford tweeted a photo of a gas stove top captioned, “COME AND TAKE IT.”
Senator Ted Cruz tweeted that the Biden administration is considering banning gas stoves, which is completely untrue.
Even Democratic Senator Joe Manchin got in on the debate. Manchin represents a state that is the second-largest coal producer in the nation, and he chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources, so he has a definite interest in protecting the fossil fuel industry.
Looks like people need to simmer down a bit.
