Manchin teams up with Cruz on bill to block gas stove ban
Breanne Deppisch
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Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced Thursday that he is teaming up with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to introduce bipartisan legislation to prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission from banning gas stoves.
The legislation, known as the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, according to a copy of the bill from NBC News, would prevent the commission from using federal funds to ban any new or existing gas stoves, Manchin told lawmakers in a preview of the bill on Thursday.
THE OBSCURE REGULATOR (AND POLITICAL SCION) WHO SPARKED THE FUROR OVER GAS STOVES
It would also bar the commission from regulating gas stoves as a “banned hazardous product” or from imposing any consumer product safety standard or rule on stoves “that would otherwise result in a prohibition” on their use or sale or otherwise substantially increase their average price, according to a copy of the legislation.
“I’ve said it before — the federal government doesn’t have any business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin said in the Thursday preview.
“If there’s technology down the road, and as we transition into the new technology, that’s fine — [but] retrofitting or removing stoves that people have had for years is not going to happen,” he added.
Richard Trumka Jr., the commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, suggested in an interview last month that the agency was weighing a ban on gas stoves due to health hazards.
His remarks sparked a political frenzy and forced the agency’s chairman to put out a statement explicitly walking back the suggestion.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also weighed in, telling reporters last month that President Joe Biden “does not support banning gas stoves.”
Still, the efforts have done little to appease some lawmakers, who have pushed for more protections for gas stoves.
Cruz described an effort to ban gas stoves in a letter to the CPSC last week as “just one part of the radical environmentalist activist’s lobbying playbook.”
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A total or partial ban on gas stoves “would constitute government overreach,” he added.
“I don’t like where I think they’re going with this, and I’ll tell you one thing: They’re not taking my gas stove out,” Manchin told lawmakers Thursday. “My wife and I would both be upset.”