“The Democrats are attacking our kitchens”, panics on the social networks the conservative senator Tom Cotton. Like him, the Republicans are indignant with a lot of tweets, all on the same refrain: the leftists want to prevent us from cooking. The Guardian tells how, in the United States, “conservative figures are trying to make gas stoves an ideological issue”.
As for the masks, or the “M&M’s packaging where there are only women”, recalls the British daily, the political figures of the American right have found a new battleground in these first weeks of 2023.
It all comes from a study published earlier this year, also shared by the Guardian, which shows the impact of gas stoves on children’s health. “Toxic and carcinogenic chemical fumes from gas stoves cause indoor air pollution far worse than that of car exhaust,” says the newspaper. According to the researchers, 12.8% of childhood asthma cases in the United States are linked to these stoves.
“Nobody is going to come and confiscate the stoves”
In response, elected Democrats have offered to help the most modest households – more likely to be equipped with these gas stoves – to change equipment. They offer financial assistance of up to 840 dollars (about 780 euros) per household for the transition to another cooking method. the Guardian reports Richard Trumka, Federal Consumer Safety Commission : “Let’s be clear: no one is going to come and confiscate the stoves.”
Currently, 38% of American homeowners still cook with gas, the newspaper recalls. And he specifies: “These new standards will only affect new construction, there will be no packs of Democrats knocking on doors to snatch homeowners their old burners.”
Yet the Conservatives continue to cry foul. Matt Walsh, a right-wing political podcaster and columnist for the Daily Wire, looks ready to fight the battle to the end:
“You’ll have to run over me if you want to take my gas cooker away from me.”
