The Dems' quiet but well-funded campaign against gas appliances

A little over a week ago, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal got everyone's attention. In the editorial, it was reported that Democrats wanted to eliminate gas stoves. (I wrote about the editorial in this post.) Virtually immediately, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. insisted that this was hysteria, most likely from MAGA Republicans.

The hysteria isn't disappearing, thanks in large part to Kim Strassel's latest column. Ms. Strassel's latest column is dedicated to exposing the environmental activist organizations that are quietly funding this movement.

According to Ms. Strassel's column, "The reason gas stoves are in the news is simple: There is a coordinated, calculated—and well-funded—strategy to kill them off. It’s the joint enterprise of extremely powerful climate groups, working with Biden administration officials who have publicly stated their aim to eliminate all 'combustion appliances' in homes. Only after the GOP called them out did anyone pretend otherwise."

Ms. Strassel continues, saying:

Some of this is being exposed in letters sent this week by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz to CPSC commissioners demanding more information. The letters highlight the primary groups behind this push. One is the Climate Imperative Foundation, which became an overnight green powerhouse and reported more receipts in 2021 than the League of Conservation Voters or the Sierra Club. A board member and funder is Kleiner Perkins billionaire John Doerr, whose climate action plan calls for getting rid of gas cooking. CIF’s executive director, Bruce Nilles, has made the end of gas stoves an imperative, writing in 2019: "Your gas stove has to go." CIF has granted money to the Rocky Mountain Institute, which has long advocated "retrofitting" existing homes to be "all electric."

Then there’s Rewiring America, "the leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses and communities." And New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, which last year called on the CPSC to enact a gas-stove ban.

The stated goal of all these group is killing gas to "save" the planet. Yet they also know Americans won’t give up their stoves in the name of climate. So several years ago this cabal hit on the idea of contradicting decades of science and ginning up hokey studies claiming gas stoves present a "health risk." The twin goals: scare Americans and give government a pretext to ban gas cooking.

News reports like this are mostly spin and devoid of scientific fact:

I'm highly skeptical that Richard Trumka Jr. knows the first thing about this subject. He was likely chosen for this position based on his late father's relationship with Joe Biden, not because he has any expertise in product safety. Ms. Strassel closes her article with this:

This ground laying and coordination is the backdrop for the Trumka explosion. Around the time of the Consumer Reports story—and in the runup to the Electrification Summit—Mr. Trumka circulated a memo titled "NPR Proposing Ban on Gas Stoves (Indoor Air Quality)." (NPR is an acronym for notice of proposed rulemaking.) The Cruz letter says the memo cites the Consumer Reports and NYU studies among reasons Mr. Trumka concludes there is “sufficient information” now to forbid Americans from purchasing new gas stoves. While the Trumka proposal failed, the CPSC initiated a "request for information"—a first step toward a ban.

Only after Bloomberg exposed some of this did the ensuing public furor cause the CPSC and White House to run for cover. But make no mistake: A ban is the plan. Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at the summit that "if we are going to get to net zero emissions by 2050," we’ll need electric "cars and buses and home heating and cooking." The left won’t stop until it has dictated what you drive, where you live, and how you cook.

After watching this TV segment, I felt like I was watching a modern version of a Third Reich propaganda film: