Vice President Kamala Harris’ Thanksgiving tweet backfired after eagle-eyed social media users noticed her using a cooking appliance that the Biden administration floated banning earlier this year.
“From our family to yours, happy Thanksgiving,” Harris posted on X Thursday, including a photo of her next to second gentleman Doug Emhoff, a casserole and a gas stove.
Harris, 59, was roasted over the post, with many conservatives accusing her of “hypocrisy.”
“Wait…that’s a gas stove! The same kind Dems want to BAN you from owning,” Sen Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on X.
“Gas stoves for me but not for thee,” Senate GOP staffer Charles Correll III tweeted.
“I thought gas stoves were bad for the environment,” actor Kevin Sorbo said, noting the impetus behind banning the stoves and other natural-gas-powered appliances in Democrat-controlled California cities such as San Francisco and Berkeley.
In January, concerns over a possible federal ban on gas stoves were sparked after a Biden administration appointee suggested that a gas stove ban was “on the table,” supposedly because of the potentially dangerous levels of toxic chemicals emitted by the popular appliances.
“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
Trumka Jr., the son of the late AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, later walked back his remarks.
“To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves,” he tweeted. “Regulations apply to new products.”
The chairman of the CPSC also distanced himself from Trumka Jr.’s initial claim.
“I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” Alex Hoehn-Saric, one of the five members on the commission, said.
Likewise, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in January that “the president does not support banning gas stoves.”
The Republican-led House passed a bill in June that would prevent the CPSC from finalizing any rule banning gas stoves.
Only 29 Democrats voted in favor of the bill.
Concerns were reignited in February after the Department of Energy proposed an “energy efficiency standard” for gas cooking products. The proposed regulation would require an energy performance standard for residential cooktops for the first time ever.
The DOE derided suggestions that the new rule would lead to gas stove bans as “absurd.”
“Neither DOE nor the federal government plans to ban gas stoves. In February 2023, DOE published a proposal that would improve efficiency of gas and electric stoves. If implemented, the standards would not go into effect until 2027 and help U.S. consumers save up to $1.7 billion. As required by congressional mandate, DOE is determined to ensure consumers have multiple options that are both cost-effective and energy efficient,” the agency said in a statement.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told congressional lawmakers in March that about half of gas cooktops currently on the market would be affected by the proposed rule – those that are “high-end” with “heavy grates” and oval-shaped burners, which she claimed lead to “an excess amount of natural gas to be emitted relative to the pot that’s on there.”
Granholm noted that it would cost about $12 per appliance to bring them into compliance with the proposed regulation.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation in April that requires all new buildings under seven stories to be fully electric by 2026 with larger structures following three years later — an effective ban on gas stoves.