The White House is pushing back against Republicans who have accused the Biden administration of wanting to prohibit the use of gas stoves in U.S. households.
“The president does not support banning gas stoves,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Wednesday’s briefing. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves. I just want to be very clear on that.”
Jean-Pierre was responding to questions about a potential ban on new gas stoves, an idea floated this week by Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, who called the appliances a "hidden hazard" in an interview with Bloomberg News.
“When it comes to the question about safety or the effect of gas stoves, that is not something that we can speak to here at the White House,” Jean-Pierre said.
GOP lawmakers, however, quickly seized on the remarks by Trumka, a Biden nominee, and argued that Biden and government bureaucrats were coming for Americans’ stoves.
The stove-banning debacle has persisted even after the safety commission said no proposal for a ban exists. Commission Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric also said in a statement that while research indicated emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous, he is “not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”