"Products that can’t be made safe can be banned”
A broad statement from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Rich Trumka Jr.
A friend sent me a link about a potential ban on gas stoves this morning. I read it and checked other sources to find out more about it. As the day passed, I saw video clips of talking heads on TV explaining how we arrived at a point where so many people are using gas stoves and how we are ruining the environment with gas stoves. Just in case you forgot, this isn’t about personal freedom; it’s about ‘climate change.’
It all started with an interview on Bloomberg with Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr. He said that a ban was "on the table" for gas stoves, and connected research linking to health problems including asthma.
"We need to be talking about regulating gas stoves, whether it's drastically reducing emissions or banning gas stoves entirely," Trumka told Public Interest Research Group. He stated that a ban "is a powerful tool in our toolbox and it's a real possibility here, particularly because there seem to be readily available alternatives already in the market."
Even AOC hopped aboard the apparent “gas stoves cause harm” train:
Here is some info from NBC:
In an interview with Bloomberg News Monday, Richard Trumka Jr. said all options would be on the table to regulate the appliances, which have been shown to be harmful to both human health and the environment, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Trumka said, adding the commission could also consider imposing new emissions standards on the appliances. Trumka is one of several commissioners on the CPSC.
Trumka later clarified in a tweet that any new regulations would apply only to new appliances.
"To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves. Regulations apply to new products," he said, adding the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act includes a $840 rebate to replace equipment like gas stoves.
What does he mean by the statement, “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned”?
Clearly, these ladies feel cooking with gas is “safe.” Gas for me but not for thee:
I’m all about learning and discovering new information. If gas stoves have been causing incredible amounts of harm for decades, and we are about to learn some facts related to bad health outcomes directly related to gas stoves, I’m open to hearing it. But the truth is, I am skeptical of ANY government official telling us there should be a ban on products.
Who can believe anything these “experts” tell us at this point?
Clayton is the founder and publisher of the social and political commentary newsletter Think Things Through and the host of the Think Things Through Podcast.
I wonder what the gas companies think of all of this...Hmmm
Mixed feelings on this one. I never was much of a fan of gas appliances myself, and I always felt like whole communities piped for gas were kind of sitting on a bomb waiting to go off, but that's just me. Mostly as a small-house owner doing all my own maintenance I've never regretted going all-electric, as much as anything because it's one less kind of leak to risk being troubled with.
But on this story, as with all things AOC, I saw this coming a few years ago when she was suddenly promoted to Overnight Sensation status for no discernible reason: that it wouldn't be long before she became a boring has-been, pathetically straining to reclaim her purely coincidental glory days by going in search of the next zeitgeist to stumble over.
But with women daily risking beatings, imprisonment, torture and death in Iran just for the right to wear their hair down, and the whole Ukrainian nation and people giving their all to expel the Russian invader and its plundering, raping, scorched-earth ways, I can't say that launching a campaign to ban the American kitchen range exactly shows up as her having the sense of current history.
She's like the Bo Derek of American politics: a few moments in the limelight before everyone begins to notice how ridiculous she really is, and the rest of her career spent not getting it that she's already just SO last decade.