The war on gas stoves is not over – but the Trump administration is fighting back

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced that it is rescinding federal grants for changes to state and local building codes that would discourage the use of natural gas for stoves and other appliances. This is another important step in dismantling this unpopular effort to meddle with our home appliance choices.

The issue burst onto the scene in early 2023 when a Biden-appointed commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that gas stoves may need to be banned. This was followed soon afterwards by a proposed DOE energy efficiency standard that disproportionately targeted gas stoves in favor of electric versions. Only after a surprisingly strong public backlash did both agencies retreat. And now with the change in administrations, such anti-gas stove regulatory threats would appear to be over.

But the war on the blue flame runs deeper than direct regulation. For years, climate change activists have comprehensively pursued the goal of ending residential natural gas use entirely and making electricity the sole energy choice for homeowners.

To be sure, the idea that we need to switch from gas to electric stoves to save the planet is about as nutty as it gets, even by climate policy standards. Nonetheless, there are many well-funded environmental groups fanatically committed to the electrification cause. And they prevailed upon Congress to include several anti-gas provisions in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The IRA could not make substantive changes to current law – under which natural gas is perfectly legal – but it did include a number of federally funded carrots and sticks to discourage its residential use. For example, the statute provides generous rebates for the purchase of electric appliances – including up to $840 for a new electric stove – but nothing for the purchase of gas versions. It also provided cash incentives to builders of subsidized housing, but only for units that did not have a natural gas hookup – needless to say, you can’t use a gas stove if your residence doesn’t have access to natural gas. Other sections provided potentially billions of dollars to community activists and environmental groups to advance a “zero-emissions technologies” agenda, which precludes the use of natural gas. Fortunately, much of this spending was curtailed under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and pending legislation would repeal several such programs entirely.  

But some such IRA spending could still slip through. This includes federal grants to state and local governments to change their building codes in ways that discourage or even preclude natural gas availability, especially in new construction. Though the grants are couched in terms of energy efficiency improvements, the intent is clear – especially in the context of the rest of the IRA – that any building code revisions should include new burdens on natural gas.

But now, DOE is rescinding several of these Biden-era grants along with others deemed not in the public interest. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright correctly questioned the merits of these federal outlays, saying their repeal would “protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy.”  

The American people do not want to see tax dollars spent to take away our energy choices, especially when it comes to gas stoves, so for consumers these rescissions are good news twice over.