WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), announced that they had secured a bipartisan amendment to prevent the Biden administration from banning gas stoves in households across America in the Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) funding bill. The amendment largely mirrors the bipartisan Gas Stoves Protection and Freedom Act that they had introduced together in February that would preclude CPSC from using federal funds to ban gas stoves or impose regulations that would substantially increase the costs of gas stoves to make them unaffordable for Americans.

The full Senate may vote on FSGG funding bill later this year.

Upon this announcement, Sen. Cruz said:

“I am glad there is bipartisan consensus that key components of the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, legislation Senator Manchin and I introduced to block the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from banning gas stoves, was adopted today. There is no doubt that at the behest of radical activists, the Biden administration is waging a multi-pronged attack on natural gas and popular appliances. While there is still much more work to be done in this fight, this is a victory against burdensome regulations from drunk-on-power bureaucrats at the CPSC who put the interests of Green New Deal absolutists ahead of consumers.”

Sen. Manchin said:

“It’s past time for Washington bureaucrats to stop overreaching and telling American families how to cook their dinner. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am proud to have secured this bipartisan amendment to prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from issuing any rule banning gas stoves and am committed to stopping the Biden Administration from extending their radical climate agenda to our kitchens.”

Background:

• On October 25, 2022, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr. sought to initiate a notice of proposed rulemaking at the CPSC to ban gas stoves in homes. 
• On October 26, 2022, the CPSC adopted CPSC Commissioner Trumka’s proposal to conduct a request for information (RFI) on public input on the “hazards associated with gas stoves”— the likely first step of the CPSC’s process to partially or totally ban gas stoves.
• On January 9, 2023, Bloomberg published an article titled, ‘US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears,’ in which CPSC Commissioner Trumka claimed that ‘[gas stoves are] a hidden hazard . . . . Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.’

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