America's Talking - Americans Oppose Gas Stove Ban, Polling Shows

Episode Date: June 25, 2023

The majority of Americans oppose a federal ban on gas stoves, according to a new poll. The Harvard CAPS Harris poll found that 69% of those surveyed opposed such a ban. The question rose to national prominence after news broke that the federal government was considering regulatory changes that would make gas stoves either banned or prohibitively expensive for Americans. Since that news broke, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic lawmakers in the state implemented a ban on gas stoves in most new housing buildings. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, there's been a lot of hullabaloo. You like that word's best I could come up with. That's pretty good, Dan. Thanks for that. About gas stoves and the potential for banning gas stoves in American homes. You've been covering the story really for a few months. I've been covering the hullabaloo. The hullabaloo. That's right. for a few months now.

Biden administration officials say they're unhealthy, not good for the environment, not good for individual families, et cetera. But most Americans don't want their gas stoves taken away from them. Tell us about that. Yeah, I mean, you're right. So there's a couple of things going on here. There's a poll release that showed from Harvest, Caps Harris, I found that 69% of those surveyed oppose a gas stove ban like this, right?

So that includes, of course, you know, it kind of falls along political. lines that you might expect. vast majority of Republicans oppose the ban. Independence are also largely opposed 71% of independence opposed the gas stove ban or anything like it. And Democrats are pretty split. But even the majority of Democrats do oppose this ban. 55% even if Democrats oppose any kind of gas stove. So Republicans, Democrats, independents all don't like the sound of this. Lawmakers in Congress, they have a bill in the House that, you know, there's a bill to block the federal government from doing a gas stove ban. But, But whether would actually get passed in the Senate and whether Biden could get behind a signing piece of legislation that would kind of undermine a regulation that was pushed by his own kind of administration would be interesting.

But that bill did pass the House 248 to 180 with bipartisan support. 248 votes is pretty good. So that that bill in particular would prevent the consumer products safety commission, which is a relevant agency in this case from using taxpayer dollars to treat gas stoves as a banned hazardous product. or put in place any regulations that would effectively make them banned. So that's kind of an interesting detail here is it's not necessarily just that they would write a rule saying gas stoves are now banned. It's that they could do something like making the regulations on gas stoves so elaborate and so strict that they might not be officially banned, but they're practically banned

because to keep up with all these regulations, it would make gas stoves prohibitively expensive for most people, right? So that's kind of a way, which is kind of a funny admission by the government that regulations are really costly for businesses and Americans that can prevent them from doing things they want to do even if they don't out wrap Bannam. So Americans oppose it. There's a bill that, you know, it's unclear if it will actually get anywhere. Regulations take a really long time to get implemented. They get proposed and they go through a very long rulemaking process. Even after it's passed, Congress has the ability through the Congressional Review Act to repeal it in a potential 2024.

Congress and administration, if hypothetically, they could repeal something like this. And there might be, I think there could really be enough political will to do it. Because to me, I mean, I'd be curious here what you think about this, Dan. But to me, people are really, I've heard so much about this gas stove being. I mean, I think it's kind of an interesting story. But initially, I was like, oh, interesting guest. Oh, man. I don't think I, you know, I don't know what I think about that.

That's a little questionable. But I keep hearing about it. And people are very upset about it. Yeah. The story doesn't make sense to me. I've been around for a while. Let's, I wasn't born yesterday, okay? I was born a long time.

Right, right. My mom had a gas stove when I was growing up. Both of my grandmothers used gas stoves. Everybody I knew had gas stoves. In fact, I used my Google machine here while you were blathering away there. Gas stoves have been in common used since the 1920s. That's 100 years. Why all of a sudden are gas stoves this now huge big?

And why did you have to Google something that happened in 1920s? Good one. Casey. It was born a long time ago. not that long ago. You know, I've lived in either owned homes or rented in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Indiana, now Illinois. For one period, one place that I was at, I had an electric stove and it was renting there and had an electric stove. I was there for about two years and absolutely hated it. There's no comparison between electric stoves and gas stoves. And now all of a sudden, gas stoves are

evil and we need to get rid of them. I just, I don't get it. Maybe gas stoves kill brain sales, I don't know. Maybe that might explain a lot. I've done plenty of things that killed some brain cells. I don't think gas stoves, but they have to do with it. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of got a twofold health and environmental argument behind it, right? They say that gas stoves can cause things like asthma, and then they, you know, talk about the environmental impact of gas stoves and methane. I think Americans, as you said, are in love with their gas stoves. And really what are happening here is Americans just do not trust health predictions from the government right now.

The federal government has lost a lot of credibility when it comes to health claims. And so to have some vague warning that a gas stove might give you asthma, it's just, I don't think anyone is really concerned or convinced by that. And then there's, I guess, the third leg of this of my blathering would be just the federal. Can the federal government even take your gas stoves? It feels pretty invasive to come into my home and tell me what I can cook with, you know? I've been staring at my watch for the last several minutes there. Casey, are you done?

I'm done. I'm done, thankfully. I am done talking about gas stoves, too. We try and keep opinion to a minimum on American focus, but I feel too strongly about this one. Leave my gas stove alone, please. We're out of time. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulam.

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