Feds Considering Possible Gas Stove Ban

Gas cooking stoves – used in more than 33% of American households – are facing a potential federal ban reportedly due to pollution from harmful emissions according to Newsmax.

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said Monday that “any option is on the table” to mitigate the “hidden hazard” of gas stoves, including a full-blown ban.

“This is a hidden hazard,” Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg in an interview Monday.

“Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Trumka said.

Despite many American cooks preferring natural gas over electricity for cooking, studies have found that gas stoves emit pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, and, “fine particulate matter” at unsafe levels.

TIME Magazine reports that a recent study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that over 12% of childhood asthma cases in the nation can be attributed to gas stove emissions.

“There is about 50 years of health studies showing that gas stoves are bad for our health, and the strongest evidence is on children and children’s asthma,” said Brady Seals, a manager in the carbon-free buildings program at the nonprofit clean energy group RMI.

“By having a gas connection, we are polluting the insides of our homes.”

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) shared his disappointment with the rumors of a ban, saying, “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands.”

“COME AND TAKE IT!!” Jackson enthusiastically added.

September 2022 Harvard report estimated that children are 42% more likely to suffer from asthma if living in a home with a gas stove based on observational research. Those children could also see their symptoms worsened by another harmful emission, nitrogen oxide.

Smithsonian Magazine also reported in February 2022 that gas stove emissions are also harmful for the environment, citing a recent Stanford study that found methane emissions from 40 million homes are parallel to the carbon dioxide emitted by 500,000 gas-powered vehicles in one year.

“The mere existence of the stoves is really what’s driving those methane emissions,” that study’s author Eric Lebel said to Nexus Media News.

“We found that over three-quarters of the methane emissions from stoves are emitted while the stove is off. So, these little, tiny leaks from the stoves, they really do add up.”