The war over gas stoves has just been shoved to the back burner.

Republicans and some centrist Democrats spent months last year defending the fossil-fuel-powered appliances against a threat that the Biden administration had never actually made: banishing the stoves from Americans’ kitchens.

On Monday, the fight ended with a new Energy Department regulation that would modestly tighten efficiency requirements for a small fraction of gas stoves on the market. The consensus rule appeared to please stove manufacturers, energy-efficiency advocates, consumer groups and utilities — but didn’t quite quell the partisan row that had flared up over the stoves a year ago, in just the latest culture-war battle over President Joe Biden’s attempt to move the U.S. to a clean-energy economy.

Republicans claimed victory over the rule, which was more modest than DOE’s initial proposal for tighter efficiency standards (though that would not have banned gas stoves, either). Democrats, meanwhile, accused GOP lawmakers of freaking out over nothing.

Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona, who sponsored House-passed legislation last year to block DOE’s proposed rule, said in a statement that the bill had "helped the Biden Administration realize they had to dial back their radical agenda." House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) similarly credited lawmakers’ actions, saying that “thanks to a bipartisan vote in the House last year, the administration is feeling the heat on their efforts to ban home appliances."

The panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, responded that Republicans had "shamelessly employed baseless scare tactics on this issue to distract from the reality........

© Politico