Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has widely attacked Democrats, saying they want to take away freedoms — including behind the wheel and in the kitchen.
“They think they have the right to order us, from the light bulbs we use to the words we speak, and now they want to ban gas cars and gas stoves,” Haley said in a March 3 speech at the Conference on political action of conservatives.
Haley did not specify which Democrats want those gas-related bans.
Haley’s spokesman pointed to news articles showing that some states are phasing out sales of new gasoline cars by 2035 and about the Department of Energy’s proposed rule on gas stoves. According to this rule, half of the current models of gas stoves cannot be sold in 2027. But this is not a complete ban.
“Haley’s statement misses the key word ‘new’ as well as ‘when,'” said Michael Gerard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia University. “No one is proposing to take away the existing petrol cars or the existing gas stoves.
Haley is a former governor of South Carolina and served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration.
One consumer commissioner raised the possibility of banning gas stoves
In January, the future of gas stoves became a political issue after Rich Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, said “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” .
But months earlier, not a single fellow commissioner supported his amendment for a proposed rule to address gas stove safety. Instead, the commission agreed to seek public comment on the amendment. The committee chairman said he was not looking to ban gas stoves.
White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said on Jan. 11 that Biden “does not support banning gas stoves.”
The proposal would mean about half of current gas stove models would not comply with the rule in 2027. But it’s not a total ban because it won’t force stoves to be removed from people’s kitchens.
E&E News, a trade news site covering the environmental and energy sectors, said the proposed rule would not mean half the stoves would have to be electric, but that manufacturers would have to modify their stoves to meet the standards.
We asked the White House if Biden supported the proposed rule and were referred back to the Department of Energy. An Energy Department spokesman told PolitiFact that the Biden administration supports the rule proposal.
The timing of the proposed rule was not in response to the fallout from Trumka’s remarks.
The Department of Energy began seeking views related to gas stoves in 2014 as part of a mandatory review of energy use standards. The department has until the end of January 2024 to issue revised standards or determine they are not needed.
Some critics of the proposed rule said it meant the department wanted to ban 96 percent of the market. This comes from a technical support document from the Department of Energy that shows 20 of 21 models tested did not comply with the proposed rule. But the Department of Energy said it was a small set of models.
Some jurisdictions are not waiting for the federal government to act. About 100 cities or counties have adopted zero-emission building ordinances, including some that require or encourage electrical appliances in newly constructed homes. But none of these moves will force the removal of existing gas stoves.
New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for phasing out fossil fuel equipment in new construction, including gas furnaces.
Several Republican-led states have passed bills to pre-empt the ban on gas hookups in new construction.
Some states have decided to phase out new gas cars by 2035
Haley’s spokesman pointed to news of California’s new rule banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars until 2035. California must get a permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and expects to receive an exemption. Other states, including New York, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts, have also announced policies that set the 2035 rule.
These five states are generally considered left-leaning. In Massachusetts, however, a bill to end the sale of new gasoline-powered cars passed the Democratic-led legislature and was signed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker, Republican.
These rules will not prohibit the existence of cars with a gasoline engine. A document on Oregon’s policy states: “You can continue to buy new gasoline vehicles until the 2035 model year, and used gasoline vehicles will continue to be available.”
Dave Cleghorn, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said the policy is not the same as a blanket ban.
“Nobody has to give up their car in 2035, they can drive it for the rest of its normal life, resell it within that time,” he said.
Many other states have adopted California’s clean air rules, meaning those states could in the future adopt the 2035 policy.
Most major automakers (with the exception of Tesla, which is now a major automaker and has always been all-electric) haven’t firmly decided when they will go all-electric in the U.S. market, said Ed Kim, president and chief analyst at AutoPacific, a for automotive marketing research and product consulting.
Sheila Foster, a professor of urban law and politics and public policy at Georgetown University, agreed that these policies do not prohibit people from owning gasoline-powered cars or gas stoves.
These laws are helping the U.S. transition to cleaner forms of energy, Foster said.
“One thing is clear to me from these laws, no one will be ‘banned’ from keeping their gas stove or gas car,” Foster said.
PolitiFact decision
Haley said Democrats “want to ban gas-powered cars and gas stoves.”
Haley’s spokesperson sent us articles about several left-leaning states banning new gas car sales until 2035. But people can keep the gas cars they already have.
The Department of Energy has proposed a rule that would make many current models of gas stoves obsolete for new hookups by 2027. But it’s not an outright ban, because no federal employee is going to walk into existing kitchens and rip out the gas stoves.
Haley’s statement is misleading by broadly labeling the Democratic Party without specifically saying who called for such policies. And he failed to explain that these are not general prohibitions. Her statement is partly accurate, but misses important details or takes things out of context.
We rate this statement as half true.