If you search the White House web site for the term “gas stoves,” it only appears twice.
The first appearance is a quote from Ruth Ann Norton, CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, at the White House Electrification Summit, from December 14, 2022:
In lower income communities, the barriers [to widespread electrification] are cost and culture. Families across America have survived winters [using] their gas stoves for heat because they haven’t been able to pay their electric bill or their electric [supply] isn’t reliable.
That clearly has nothing to do with any alleged danger or environmental threat from gas stoves.
Then, on January 11, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefly addressed the proposals to ban or phase out gas stoves, essentially saying she and the president knew nothing about it:
Q Can I ask about this gas stove thing that kind of bubbled up yesterday? Does the White House think gas stoves are safe? And I know that the Consumer Product Safety Commission said today that they’re not looking to ban gas stoves, but I’m wondering: Was there communication between the White House and CPSC?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: So, as far as the safety piece of it, it’s not something for us to answer from here. I would refer you to the Consumer Productiv- — Product Safety Commission. As the chair said today, and I quote, “Research indicates that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous and the CPSC is looking for ways to reduce related indoor air quality hazards…But to be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”
Look, as far as our conversation with — to your question, we are in regular touch with them. But, of course, they are independent — they were independently correcting the record on this for several days now. And so, as far as I’m aware, we’re not in touch with them on this particular issue. Again, I would — I would refer you to their comment.
In other words, the nascent effort to ban or gradually eliminate gas stoves through regulation is going on in the federal bureaucracy; as the Wall Street Journal notes today, “the Energy Department proposed new efficiency standards that would ban the sale of most gas stoves currently on the market.”
A spokesperson for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers tells us that gas cook-tops would have to be completely redesigned to comply. Burners might have to become smaller and heavy grate designs altered, which would increase cooking times.
Twenty of the 21 gas stove-top models that the Energy Department tested wouldn’t comply with its proposed standards. Manufacturers would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars redesigning stoves, if they bother.
But it’s something the White House doesn’t want to talk about, and isn’t willing to talk about.
President Biden doesn’t do a lot of sit-down interviews, and it is easy to see why. His staff never knows when he’ll blurt out “that was four or five days ago, man!” or “you’re being a wise guy!” and come across as prickly, doddering, out-of-touch or oblivious. And this means it is unlikely Biden will be asked anytime soon about whether the federal government should be attempting to phase out the use of gas stoves, or whether he considers them dangerous or harmful in some way. (We know the Bidens have at least one gas stove in one of their two houses they own.)
It is likely that Biden himself doesn’t think gas stoves are harmful, to the extent he thinks about gas stoves at all. A question about why gas stoves should be phased out would likely generate another serving of word salad, invoking the need to save the planet, trusting the science, memories of his mom cooking growing up in Scranton, his favorite dishes, and who knows, maybe a reference to Corn Pop. Biden himself is unlikely to be able to articulate an argument supporting the phasing out of gas stoves. Biden might well insist his administration isn’t taking any actions to phase out the use of gas stoves. It’s fair to wonder how many details he hears and remembers about what’s going on in his own administration.
This is why many of Biden’s critics contend he isn’t really running the executive branch, and is a figurehead president. He lives in the White House, attends the summits, gives remarks or one speech a day around the middle of the day, then calls a lid. This coming week, he’ll stay up late to read the State of the Union off a teleprompter. My guess is he won’t mention gas stoves in that speech, either.