Global Courant 2023-04-17 14:00:07
EXCLUSIVE: A coalition of 18 energy and consumer advocacy groups is submitting comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday, arguing that the agency’s rules cracking down on gas stoves would harm Americans.
The groups are led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). argued the regulations on cookers, which the DOE introduced in early February, would jeopardize consumer choice and is therefore “arbitrary and fickle” while having minimal impact on climate change. The comment letter focused largely on compliance with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), which requires the federal government to implement energy efficiency measures without compromising consumer choice.
“EPCA does not mandate a new energy efficiency standard for cooking products, but only allows one if it benefits consumers. This is not the case here,” the groups wrote. “The proposed rule would almost certainly compromise some features that gas stove users want, all to save an insignificant amount of energy.”
“The agency’s exaggerated claims of climate change benefits do not negate the fact that the proposed rule violates consumer protections in the statute,” they continued. “For these reasons, we believe that the proposed rule should be withdrawn.”
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“We believe the proposed rule should be withdrawn,” a coalition of 18 consumer and energy groups wrote to the Department of Energy on Monday. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
According to the letter, the EPCA prohibits the DOE from setting an efficiency standard that would “sacrifice any desired product characteristics.”
However, the stovetop rule would likely restrict the use of so-called high-input burners, which are larger burners often used for boiling water, searing, or stir-frying. It would also prevent gas stoves from using smaller low-fire burners for simmering, meaning the total number of burner types on stoves would be significantly reduced.
In addition, the DOE rule suggests limiting stoves’ heavy or continuous grates, which are often cast iron and used for handling heavier pots.
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“Obviously, these DOE efficiency standards should benefit consumers. That’s how the law is written,” Ben Lieberman, a CEI senior fellow who helped draft the remarks, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “But they’re clearly being done as part of the climate agenda, especially this agenda to electrify everything.”
“On the surface, this is an efficiency standard. I see it done in a way that will create disadvantages for gas stoves to ensure they meet,” Lieberman continued. “So it’s not a ban on gas stoves, but it’s some of the features that people like about gas stoves. Some of the features they like about that gas — those may need to be eliminated.”
After a Biden-appointed member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said the agency would consider a ban on gas stoves, the White House said the president did not support such a measure. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Lieberman also argued that the DOE’s purported emissions savings from the regulation would be negligible and cited a Heritage Foundation analysis that found that the DOE’s projected avoidance of 19.6 million tons of carbon dioxide from the gas stove rule would result in a reduction in temperature of just 0.0004 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 0.0009 degrees Celsius by 2100.
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“There are not only the economic concerns, but also the question of whether – if their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – this is a smart way to go about it,” he continued. “I think there’s a serious question there as well.”
On Feb. 1, the DOE proposed the regulations, saying they would go into effect in 2027 and save Americans up to $1.7 billion while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pushed back to criticismsaying she owned a gas stove and the regulations would affect 50% of current gas stove models.
“The full range of gas stoves is absolutely unaffected,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in March. “In fact, half of the gas stoves currently on the market would not even be affected.” (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images))
“The full range of gas stoves is absolutely unaffected,” Granholm noted at a hearing in March.
The proposal, meanwhile, came less than a month after a President Biden-appointed member of the little-known Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) made headlines when he told Bloomberg in early January that a ban on gas stoves was “on the table” given the alleged effects. of the product on health.
The White House later denounced a ban, but the CPSC said it would continue to include public feedback on gas stove safety.
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And in recent months, meanwhile, the DOE has introduced a range of other energy efficiency regulations that affect various home appliances, including air conditioners, ovens, clothes washing machines and refrigerators. Critics have dismissed the rules as federal in scope and unnecessary given that industry has improved the technology without government intervention.
Other organizations that signed the CEI-led letter on Monday include Caesar Rodney Institute, Center for the American Experiment, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, Heartland Institute, Science and Environmental Policy Project, Energy & Environment Legal Institute, Consumer Research, Institute for Energy Research and FreedomWorks.
Thomas Catenacci is a political writer for Fox News Digital.
