'Incredible embarrassment': MAGA Republicans tank pro-gas stoves bills to punish McCarthy over debt ceiling

07 June 2023

From Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to pundits at Fox News, MAGA Republicans have made gas stoves a culture war issue. The ironic part of the "liberals want to take your gas stove" argument is that residents of red states are more likely to own electric stoves.

Another irony: MAGA Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus have blocked bills designed to protect gas stoves from regulation and oversight — and did so to punish House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) for making a debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden.

GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to The New Republic's Kate Aronson, are pushing bills "that would prevent the Department of Energy and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission from implementing modest new rules on gas stoves." Republicans, Aronson notes, are ignoring research linking gas stoves to childhood asthma.

"In an Oversight Committee hearing last week — held as Republicans brought the country to the edge of default — Republicans laid out the GOP's pro-asthma talking points," Aronson reports. "Republican witness Kenneth Stein, of the Charles Koch-backed Institute for Energy Research, called the proposed DOE rule to set new energy conservation standards for cooktops 'yet another piece of (the Biden) Administration's whole of government approach to targeting energy sources that it disapproves of for ideological reasons.'"

Aronson offers some reasons why Republicans have been "defending gas stoves" even though "most of their constituents don't use" them.

"The Save Our Gas Stove Act's lead sponsor, Arizona Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, received $33,500 from PACs linked to the oil and gas industry during the last campaign cycle, including $10,000 from Koch Industries," Aronson reports. " Roughly 74 percent of homes in Arizona use electric cooking appliances."

But it was Republican members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, ironically, who undermined GOP efforts to protect gas stoves from regulation and oversight — although not because they agreed with Democrats on the issue.

Rather, Common Dreams' Brett Wilkins notes that Freedom Caucus members voted to block GOP-sponsored pro-gas stoves bills to express their anger with McCarthy for making a debt ceiling deal with Biden. Those MAGA Republicans included, among others, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona).

As House Freedom Caucus members see it, the budget cuts that Biden and McCarthy agreed on don't go far enough. And they feel that McCarthy let them down.

Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett, on June 6, noted the irony, tweeting, "Haha. Republicans don't even have the votes to advance their own bill creating fake hysteria around banning gas stoves — which no one is trying to do. The House GOP majority hard at work on the issues that matter most!"

Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman tweeted, "An incredible embarrassment for the House Republican leadership. The morning McCarthy tries to turn the page, conservatives slap him and his leadership team in the face."

Data bears out Aronson's reporting that Republicans are the most likely to own electric stoves.

In January, Statista reported that gas stoves, per capita, were the most common in blue states such as New Jersey, New York and Illinois. According to Statista, 69 percent of stoves in New Jersey are gas — compared to only 11 percent in Tennessee and North Dakota.

In North Carolina, a GOP-friendly swing state, 90 percent of stoves are electric.

DeSantis has touted gas stoves as a way to fight "wokeness," but only 8 percent of Floridians, according to Tampa's WFLA-TV, own them.

In other words, liberals aren't robbing Republicans of their gas stoves because the vast majority of Republicans already own electric stoves.

The New Republic's full report is available at this link.

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