Right-wing media figures become gas stove devotees after health concerns arise

Right-wing media continues to rant against a gas stove ban, even after a US agency confirmed there won't be one

Research contributions from Ted MacDonald & Alicia Sadowski

Published 01/12/23 2:55 PM EST

Right-wing media are melting down over reporting that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering implementing regulations to address health concerns from gas stove emissions. One agency commissioner suggested that a ban on the manufacture or import of new gas stoves for homes and businesses was on the table.

In response to backlash to the report, the agency has clarified that it will not ban gas stoves and is instead looking to strengthen voluntary standards and ask for more information from the public about their gas stove emissions.

The update came after right-wing influencers resorted to performative hand-wringing about the Biden administration’s supposed plan to steal their cherished appliances in their sleep while dismissing the research related to the health and safety of America’s children, whom right-wing media figures insist they champion.

Despite fearmongering, consumers would not have been forced to trash their functioning gas stoves

As Bloomberg reported, potential actions the agency could take include “barring the manufacture or import of gas stoves” or “setting standards on emissions from the appliances.” The agency has further clarified that it is “not looking to ban gas stoves” and has “no proceeding to do so.”

After expressing his undying love for gas stoves in a Twitter argument with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) about health risks, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) has even created a “save our stoves” petition based on misinformation to stop “the maniacs in the White House” from getting “away with this.” Here are some other examples of right-wing media panicking about and misconstruing potential regulations:

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “You will have to pry my gas stove from my cold dead hands.” [Twitter, 1/9/23]
Fox Business host Stuart Varney warned that “the government is coming for your gas stove.” Varney falsely claimed that environmental groups want to yank “out the gas stoves used in 40 million American homes.” He continued: “What a farce. Do you really think all the electricity we'll need will come from renewables? Environmentalism is a religion; the greens insist that you worship at their church.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 1/10/23]
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ former press secretary Christina Pushaw: “Biden will ban gas stoves for normal people. Not for elites. This is Soviet America: Rules for thee, not for me.” [Twitter, 1/10/23]
On his podcast The Benny Show, Newsmax’s Benny Johnson claimed the studies were funded by “environmental terrorists”: “What this is all about, much like so many of these fraudulent studies, is about a political agenda. They don’t like gas, so they want to ban you from being able to cook your food. The end.” [The Benny Show, 1/10/23]
Fox News host Sean Hannity: “Now not only is Biden coming for your paycheck, but he's also coming for your stove. … These radical extremists in the Democratic Party, they, of course, they want to control the way — what, you now cook?” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/10/23]
Failed Republican congressional candidate Lavern Spicer: “I’m going to be keeping my gas stove no matter what Joe Biden says.” [Twitter, 1/10/23]

Right-wing media try to dismiss peer-reviewed studies

Right-wing media have been bending over backward to find excuses to dismiss the most recent study, as well as previous studies suggesting that gas stoves pose health risks to families. Scientists’ concern over these appliances and indoor air pollution is not new, despite what some have suggested. Still, conservative media figures are insisting that all of these studies must be politically motivated and therefore unreliable. They claim any ban would be unrelated to public health and would simply enable extreme government overreach. And, further establishing a throughline between climate change skepticism and anti-vax sentiments, some have compared the ban to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. And of course, right-wing media, which have often allied with the fossil fuel industry, are using a potential ban to attack electrification and spread misinformation about natural gas. Far from a bridge fuel, it releases methane, an extremely potent climate-warming greenhouse gas.

Conservative influencers continued to rail about the ban after it was walked back

Even after the agency said that there would be no ban, right-wing media continued to mislead the public by pushing the idea that the government would be coming to steal gas stoves across the country and otherwise criticize the possibility of regulations.

Efforts to electrify buildings and vehicles have also been a focus of right-wing attacks

This isn’t the first time right-wing media have freaked out about so-called consumer choice and electrification. They responded similarly to legislation in New York City and California banning the sale of various new gas-powered appliances such as heaters and water boilers, and to the ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars in California. In those instances as well, consumers are not being forced to immediately switch their cars and appliances.

On the January 11 segment of The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham attacked gas bans in cities across the country: “The federal government may back down this whole natural gas banning for the time being, but not these fanatics. … How much suffering will California and New York and Massachusetts and New Jersey, how much will they have to go through?” she said.

Lee Zeldin, a former Republican candidate for New York governor, told Ingraham that the economic consequences of a gas ban “are dire.” He continued, “These people are beholden to the environmental crazies.”

In February, Fox News recruited celebrity chef Andrew Gruel to lead the fight against electric stoves. At that time, Gruel made the case that not only would shifting to gas stoves “change the face of cooking – we’re going to be microwaving absolutely everything,” but also that doing so would be a “tax on the lower class” because of the cost “to retrofit and rip a lot of these ethnic kitchens apart that rely on things like the wok.”

On January 10, Gruel appeared on the network almost a year later to argue “they’re using our kids as fodder and bait for their insanity” and claiming that it was “written by an environmental think tank … whose financial incentive is to reduce greenhouse emissions.” He then accused the study of “trying to cherry-pick as much statistical analysis as they can to even put together an argument supporting this idea that asthma can be connected, and it’s not.”

On Twitter, Gruel vowed to tape himself to a gas stove until the idea for a ban “is completely eliminated from everybody’s minds.” In another tweet, he claimed, “We have used gas stoves for hundreds of years. There is no correlation between an increase in childhood asthma and their use.”

Even if there were unlimited reliable evidence on the harm that gas stoves pose to human health, the right would not support electrification. And even if gas stoves did not harm children, the fact that methane emissions from natural gas are rapidly warming the climate should be enough to encourage a transition toward electric appliances. The right is attempting to reinforce natural gas as a clean and safe fuel when scientists agree that it isn’t. They are also making accusations about politicizing health issues, but that is precisely what they are doing.

Right-wing media figures become gas stove devotees after health concerns arise

Despite fearmongering, consumers would not have been forced to trash their functioning gas stoves

Right-wing media try to dismiss peer-reviewed studies

Conservative influencers continued to rail about the ban after it was walked back

Efforts to electrify buildings and vehicles have also been a focus of right-wing attacks

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