The White House is responding to Republican accusations that the Biden administration wants to ban the use of gas stoves in American homes.
“The president does not support the prohibition of gas stoves,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing on Wednesday. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves. Just to be clear.”
Jean-Pierre was responding to questions about a possible ban on new gas stoves, an idea floated this week by Consumer Product Safety Commission member Richard Trumka Jr., who called the appliances a “hidden hazard” in an interview with Bloomberg News.
“We cannot speak to the question of safety or the effect of gas stoves here at the White House,” Jean-Pierre said.
Republican lawmakers, on the other hand, seized on Trumka’s remarks, a Biden nominee, and claimed that Biden and government bureaucrats were after Americans’ stoves.
The stove-banning saga has continued even after the safety commission stated that there is no proposal for a ban. While research has shown that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous, Commission Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric stated in a statement that he is “not looking to ban gas stoves, and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”
