(Radio Iowa) – The head of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission says a ban on gas stoves is being considered as evidence mounts of potential risks to human health. A study released last month found that 13-percent of childhood asthma cases nationwide can be blamed on indoor use of gas stoves. Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, says the proposed ban is absurd.
“I know many families who cook with gas, who heat their homes with gas. To ban gas stoves is just a completely out of touch idea,” Hinson says. “It goes right along with a lot of the other things we’ve seen come out of this administration. They want to control the cars we drive. They want to control what we eat, how it’s grown, and now even the way Iowans are cooking their food.” Hinson says the “nonsense” ban would have a big impact on many Iowans as roughly four in every ten Iowa households cooks on gas stoves.
“It will disproportionately hurt our rural and low-income Americans,” she says. “We are focused on doing what the American people want us to do. The Biden Administration should be focused on that. They should be focused on reducing inflation, securing the border, focusing on common-sense energy policies, not on banning gas stoves, it’s a ridiculous idea.”
The White House on Wednesday asserted that President Joe Biden does not support a ban on gas stoves.
A report from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says fine natural gas particulates have also been linked with higher rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The American Gas Association has pushed back on the ban proposal, saying that gas stove emissions are similar to those created when cooking with electric stoves.