Posts Tagged ‘regulation’

Last week the internet exploded with outrage over the federal government’s proposed banning of gas stoves.  The justification for this contemptible behavior is the same tired excuse all of the petty Coronavirus tyrants used to justify the trampling of everyone’s rights and freedoms. As you can see from this Chicago Tribune article, they claim to be doing this for our health.

Gas cooking in the home was linked to a 42% higher risk that children would have asthma, in a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study, a meta-analysis combining the results of 41 previous studies, also suggested a 24% increase in children’s lifetime risk of asthma.

A subsequent study found that longer use of gas stoves caused higher nitrogen dioxide levels, which in turn were linked to increased nighttime inhaler use in children with asthma.

Homes with gas stoves have nitrogen dioxide concentrations 50% — 400% higher than homes with electric stoves, according to a report by the clean energy nonprofit RMI.

A 2022 study in Environmental Science and Technology found hazardous air pollutants, including the carcinogen benzene, in natural gas used in Boston-area homes, and a 2020 report by RMI found that gas stoves often create indoor levels of nitrogen dioxide that exceed EPA standards for outdoor air.

Just as with climate change and the Coronavirus tyranny, the proposed gas stove ban is based on junk science.  The authors of the study used to justify this outrage are climate change fanatics.

Several listed coauthors are affiliated with groups pushing net-zero and decarbonization. Talor Gruenwald is a research associate with Rewiring America, a self-described “leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities.” Another listed author is Brady A. Seals, manager of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon-Free Buildings program (a backer of the study). Seals isn’t a scientist or health professional. Her RMI department advocates constructing zero-carbon buildings, retrofitting 5% of buildings each year, and ensuring “electric and efficient appliances.” 

The authors used fabricated data and dishonest methods such as this.

 another expert told a separate media outlet that the researchers had encased the kitchens in a Mylar tent to “trap and concentrate the emissions, and then measure the concentration. ” No one cooks in a kitchen like that! He said it would “incorrect” to draw any health conclusions from the paper.

Thankfully for us, the outrage generated by the proposed gas stove ban was so overwhelming that the ban was rescinded, for now.

The federal government created by the US Constitution was never granted the authority to regulate the commercial activity of businesses and individuals in any way.  It was never granted the power to ban any product, let alone gas stoves. 

In the 1940s the federal government granted itself the authority to micromanage all aspects of the United States economy by rewriting the plain meaning of the Commerce Clause.  As you can see from this excerpt from the Preface from the transcripts of the debates that occurred during the writing of the Constitution, the Interstate Commerce Clause was written only to prevent the States from imposing taxes and tariffs on the large-scale transportation of goods between the States.

The want of authy. in Congs. to regulate Commerce had produced in Foreign nations particularly G. B. a monopolizing policy injurious to the trade of the U. S. and destructive to their navigation; the imbecility and anticipated dissolution of the Confederacy extinguishg. all apprehensions of a Countervailing policy on the part of the U. States.

The same want of a general power over Commerce led to an exercise of this power separately, by the States, wch not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting and angry regulations. Besides the vain attempts to supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their commerce into the neighbouring ports, and to co-erce a relaxation of the British monopoly of the W. Indn. navigation, which was attemted by Virga. the States having ports for foreign commerce, taxed & irritated the adjoining States, trading thro’ them, as N. Y. Pena. Virga. & S–Carolina. Some of the States, as Connecticut, taxed imports as from Massts higher than imports even from G. B. of wch Massts. complained to Virga. and doubtless to other States. In sundry instances of as N. Y. N. J. Pa. & Maryd. the navigation laws treated the Citizens of other States as aliens.

Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash

 

By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – What in the world was in the water in DC last week that the crazy “ban on gas stoves” got so much traction?!

Have we got nothing else to talk about?! To regulate?!

Incredible.

Apparently we are through talking about $6.00/dozen eggs and it’s a good thing because you won’t be able to fry those eggs on a gas stove if the internet is to be believed.

So, no, the government isn’t coming for your gas stove but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to. Full disclosure: I have a gas stove, I’ve always had a gas stove, my parents and both sets of grandparents had gas stoves. We are all part of the 35% of homes in the United States that use gas stoves. In fact, when the power grid went down in the last winter storm my gas stove stood by steadfastly ready to heat my water for coffee and we were still able to cook meals.

I have never been able to properly make a roux on an electric stove; I find them incredibly unreliable.

So yes, it concerns me a great deal to think the government has nothing else to do (or to regulate) than my gas stove.

They are “a health hazard,” proponents of this say, but my gas stove has never hurt me in over sixty years. I think I’m pretty safe. And in fact I don’t know a single person who has ever been attacked by their gas stove.

Oh, I know. They’re citing a “toxic stew” of chemical pollution and elevated cases of asthma in homes with gas stoves. Maybe we should all go back to cooking on campfires. Or will they regulate wood next?

I just can’t take this seriously and am sick to death of over regulation.

If they’re really running out of things to regulate I can give them some suggestions. Just saying.

but the one thing you don’t do is mess with the blood supply:

A government health committee Friday recommended not changing the ban on gay men donating blood but also called for new research on alternative policies, citing flaws in the current rules.

Gay men have been prohibited from giving blood since 1985. But momentum to change the ban has grown recently, with advocacy groups, blood-collection organizations and members of Congress calling for the Food and Drug Administration to revise the donation rules.

The safety of the US blood supply is of paramount importance, once that is lost or confidence in it is lost all bets are off.

The American Plasma Users Coalition, representing people who depend on the blood supply to maintain health, urged additional research, forecasting that revisions in the donation rules eventually will be made.

But the coalition’s Mark Skinner also said, “It’s not about blood supply; it’s about blood safety … Ultimately the end-user bears 100 percent of the risk.’’

He said, “The fact that it’s discriminatory does not mean it’s wrong if it’s in the interest of public health.’’

Added Corey Dubin, a hemophiliac infected with HIV from a tainted blood product: “This is daily question of survival.’’

Forgetting the risk to lives for a moment if you want to increase litigation and cost to a healthcare system this is the way to do it.