Concerns raised about the health hazards posed by gas stoves have triggered a sharp rebuke from the gas industry and its Republican allies, inserting a common kitchen appliance into the middle of partisan politics. AFP
There’s a famous adage: Can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Now, it seems that a US federal agency wants to get the heat out of the kitchen, as it mulls a ban on gas stoves.
Richard Trumka Jr, a US Consumer Product Safety commissioner, set off a firestorm by saying in an interview with Bloomberg that gas stoves posed a “hidden hazard” and suggested the agency could ban them. He later confirmed that “everything’s on the table” when it comes to gas stoves, but stressed that any ban would apply only to new gas stoves, not existing ones.
The announcement triggered a backlash, as many Americans continue to have a love affair with the gas stove; it’s a feature of 40 million American households, or about 38 per cent. This love was pretty much summed up by Senator Joe Manchin, who tweeted on Tuesday, “I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.”
So, what’s the brouhaha all about? Why does the US Consumer Product Safety Commission want to ban them? What’s so dangerous about them? And where does the Biden Administration stand on the issue?
Why ban gas stoves?
A new study has now sketched out that about one in eight cases of asthma in children in the United States is due to the pollution given off by cooking on gas stoves. The study painted an ugly picture, saying that 12.7 per cent of all current cases of childhood asthma is owing to the exposure to pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide that spews from stoves.
Brady Seals, manager of the carbon free buildings program at RMI who undertook the research with epidemiologists in the US and Australia, said the prevalence of asthma due to gas stoves is similar to the amount of asthma caused by second hand smoking, which she called “eye popping”.
Seals added: “We knew this was a problem but we didn’t know how bad. This study shows that if we got rid of gas stoves we would prevent 12.7 per cent of childhood asthma cases, which I think most people would want to do.”
This isn’t the first time that the dangers of using a gas stove have been raised. Scientists have said that when the stove is switched on, it starts by spilling out methane, the world’s second-most problematic greenhouse gas. Other pollutants such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde also accumulate in the kitchen. The biggest concern is nitrogen dioxide, which causes cardiovascular problems and respiratory disease.
Indoor air quality scientists, like Shelly Miller, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Vox that people and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been aware of the risks since at least the 1990s. “Cooking is the number one way you’re polluting your home. It is causing respiratory and cardiovascular health problems; it can exacerbate flu and asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in children.”
Gas stoves aren’t only a risk medically. They are also harmful for the environment, with a 2022 study by Stanford University revealing that even when the appliance is not in use, it releases 2.6 million tonnes of methane into the air each year, a figure on par with the amount of greenhouse gas that 500,000 cars release annually.
“We found a slow bleed of methane that would happen while the stove was off,” said lead author Eric Lebel, a doctoral student at Stanford.
The study also examined levels of nitrous oxides in 32 of the kitchens and found that while stoves are in use, levels of the pollutants can exceed federal exposure guidelines if the kitchens don’t have ventilation hoods or those hoods aren’t switched on.
A man stands on his kitchen counter to warm his feet over his gas stove during a snow storm in Austin, Texas. Following comments made by a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, claims that the Biden administration is planning on banning gas stoves have spread widely. AP
Why the row then?
However, news of the CPSC mulling a ban owing to the dangers over it, hasn’t been received well. The American Gas Association has pushed back on any sort of regulation, issuing a statement regarding the recent study.
“A December 2022 report in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health linking natural gas cooking with asthma is not substantiated by sound science. Any discussion or perpetuation of the allegations in this report which is funded by non-governmental organisations to advance their agenda to remove consumer energy choice and the option of natural gas is reckless. The authors conducted no measurements or tests based on real-life appliance usage, and ignored literature, including one study of data collected from more than 500,000 children in 47 countries that “detected no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis. Any allegation that gas stoves exceed standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization is patently false,” it read.
Also read: New Zealand’s plan to tax cow and sheep burps
Jill Notini, an industry spokesperson added, “A ban on gas cooking appliances would remove an affordable and preferred technology used in more than 40 per cent of home across the country. A ban of gas cooking would fail to address the overall concern of indoor air quality while cooking, because all forms of cooking, regardless of heat source, generate air pollutants, especially at high temperatures.”
It further argued that ventilation is the solution for gas stove pollution, and reiterated that all cooking, even on an electric burner or the modern induction equivalent, produces particulate matter that should be ventilated.
Also read: Perils of pollution: It’s time we stopped taking clean air for granted
What does the Biden administration have to say?
Receiving backlash from Republicans citing hypocrisy, the White House on 11 January said, “The president does not support banning gas stoves. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves. I just want to be very clear on that,” said Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
The reaction came after several Republicans and even a few Democrats opposed any legislation on gas stoves. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas shared an old photo of First Lady Jill Biden cooking on a gas stove, suggesting hypocrisy.
“This is a recipe for disaster,” West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.”
With inputs from agencies
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