Forget Stoves! There’s a Growing Movement to Ban New Homes From Having Any Gas at All
A growing number of states and cities are considering or implementing bans for the future construction of not just gas stoves, but natural gas hookups themselves, a move that would raise costs for consumers and potentially have negative environmental consequences, natural gas advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Lawmakers in the state of Minnesota introduced legislation Wednesday that would permit the state’s Commissioner of Labor and Industry to amend the state’s energy code to “mitigate the impact of climate change,” a directive that could be used to justify a ban on natural gas, according to the free-market Minnesota think-tank Center of the American Experiment. California and New York are weighing statewide bans which would not only increase costs, but may not have the climate benefits advocates hope for, Dan Kish, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research told the DCNF.
“Natural gas is our cleanest fossil [fuel] and it is responsible for the U.S. reducing carbon dioxide emissions more than other country, largely because we have centuries of the stuff.” Kish told the DCNF. “God blessed North America with enormous energy wealth, and our only impediment is power-hungry politicians who want to make energy more expensive and more foreign, while bossing Americans around by telling them how to heat their homes and what kind of car they can drive.”
Roughly half of all homes in the U.S. use natural gas for space and water heating, accounting for about 15% of all natural gas consumption in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Space heating with natural gas tends to be far cheaper than all-electric systems because they are more energy efficient, according to Seattle-based HVAC firm Evergreen Home Heating and Energy.
The issue of natural gas bans gained national prominence after news broke that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) was considering banning gas stoves nationwide amid concerns that the pollutants produced by the stoves may have harmful effects. Yet, the study that these concerns are based on was partly funded by a pair of activist groups that advocate for the electrification of appliances. (Read more from “Forget Stoves! There’s a Growing Movement to Ban New Homes From Having Any Gas at All” HERE)
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