(The Hill) – Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is accusing Republicans of fueling a frenzy over unfounded rumors that the Biden administration is getting ready to ban popular gas stoves because they don’t want to explain what spending cuts they want in exchange for raising the debt limit.
“At first you have to laugh at the ‘gas stove ban’ narrative being cooked up by the MAGA GOP,” he said in a statement released Friday.
Schumer noted that the Energy Department and the commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission have already denied that there are any plans brewing to declare gas stoves unsafe and ban them and said Republicans “are trying to get this spaghetti to stick and distract the American people.”
Schumer’s statement was circulated in a press release from his office that declared: “Nobody is taking away your gas stove.”
“I challenge the MAGA Republicans to turn the tide and show the American people they can get things done. Put a fork in this ridiculous gas stove strategy, and fast. Show us your plan” to raise the debt ceiling, the Democratic leader demanded.
Schumer’s comments come a day after centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he had teamed up with conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to introduce the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act.
“The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin said in a statement Thursday. “The last thing that would ever leave our house is the gas stove we cook on, and I will continue to fight any overreach by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
Schumer is now trying to douse that narrative before it has a chance to spread.
He emphasized on Friday that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed with a party-line vote last year, provides grants and tax credits for consumers who want to make their homes more energy efficient but doesn’t require them to do so.
The legislation included the home energy efficiency tax credit, the residential clean energy tax credit, the high-efficiency home electrification rebate grant program and the home energy performance-based, whole-house rebate program.
Schumer tried to dispel fears over the Department of Energy’s new efficiency standards for gas and electric stoves as something the department has done periodically since the 1970s.
He explained the proposed standards would only apply to new gas and electric stoves and won’t require families to get rid of what they already have in their kitchens.
Fears over a possible gas-stove ban flared up in January when Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, told Bloomberg News that the commission was considering new regulations and possibly a ban on gas stove because of concerns about the emissions they create indoors.
Trumka later told CNN “we are not looking to go into anyone’s home and take away things that are already there,” but he said there could be “forward-looking” regulation on stoves.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said.
