
The Biden regime has suffered a setback in its efforts to crush the middle class into oblivion after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Berkeley, California’s ban on gas stoves. This is good news for all of America since the federal court has ruled that states and localities cannot do something indirectly after Congress has said they cannot implement these rule changes directly (we’ll explain below). The good news is that everyone can keep cooking with natural gas—at least for now.
The Biden administration first said it was going to ban all gas stoves a couple of months ago. When people noticed that and objected to it, they turned around and claimed that they had no intention of banning gas stoves, and you were a crazy lunatic conspiracy theorist if you thought otherwise. Then, the Biden administration’s EPA directors issued new rule proposals that banned more than half of all gas stoves on the market by imposing strict regulations on stoves that will probably never be met.
After one suspicious study claimed that gas stoves cause asthma or something, liberal states and cities jumped all over it. They just had to ban all the gas stoves that have been around since the 19th century because of this thing that someone had made up approximately 11 seconds ago.
That presents a problem for states and cities because only the federal government is allowed to regulate the natural gas industry. So, the lunatics in Berkeley banned natural gas piping in homes and commercial buildings. That’ll show them! By the way, this also effectively banned clothes dryers, water heaters, and furnaces that run on natural gas in most homes in California. Science!
They kind of gave the whole game away there, didn’t they? If the Democrats can get away with banning natural gas cookstoves, there’s no way that they will stop there. Water heaters, clothes dryers, and everything else that runs on cheap, safe, clean, and efficient natural gas will be banned next.
The restaurant associations sued the city of Berkeley on the grounds that chefs are primarily trained to cook on natural gas stoves and not on inefficient and expensive electric ones. They know their meal prep times, cooking times, and a bunch of other stuff based on the temperatures and capabilities of a gas stove. All that knowledge would be completely moot if they force everywhere to switch to electric stoves.
Anyone who thinks that banning gas stoves is a good idea obviously hasn’t talked to a contractor. Consumer Reports found that many homeowners will need a massive and expensive contracting job just to retrofit their homes to accept an electric stove. Many contractors quoted $2,000 to $3,000 to do the job. And that’s not taking into account the roughly $300 per month ($3,600 per year) that running an electric stove will cost homeowners on their monthly electricity bills.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the restaurateurs. US Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote in the majority decision, “Berkeley can’t evade preemption by merely moving up one step in the energy chain and banning natural gas piping within those buildings.”
Take that, liberal commies!
This does not mean that Joe Biden’s lunatic weather cultists will stop trying to ban gas stoves at the federal level. They’re totally going to keep trying. Liberals can’t sleep at night if they can’t boss people around and ban things. But at least it is one major setback, at the federal level, to their plans to make everything miserable and more expensive.