No, NJ didn’t ban your gas stove — despite what some Republican lawmakers said

Published Aug 10, 2023

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New Jersey is not banning your gas stove — at least not under any policy currently up for consideration. That’s despite several lawmakers' claims to the contrary.

“Join the fight. If you want to keep your stove, vote Republican,” Jack Ciattarelli, the perennial candidate for governor, said in a social media post. It’s a policy claim other GOP leaders are pushing as well.

No pending measure would deprive New Jerseyans of their gas stoves, but the claims have taken on a life of their own and widened the Garden State's political divide over climate change – during a summer of forest fires, smoky skies and extreme heat.

Republican leaders have opposed Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration's ambitious plans for offshore wind and electric vehicle adoption.

Now, they’re taking up the mantle against financial incentives that would encourage residents to electrify their homes and retire equipment, including gas stoves.

The kerfuffle over gas stoves flared up when the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities proposed a since-passed policy requiring utility companies to offer incentives to consumers to adopt more energy-efficient infrastructure in their homes. The utilities will also be allowed to offer incentives to commercial and industrial customers.

It’s part of a three-year energy efficiency plan that includes reducing the consumption of natural gas, a fossil fuel and a major cause of climate change. The efforts come in tandem with executive orders Murphy issued earlier this year aiming to electrify 400,000 more residential units and telling the BPU to develop plans that would sharply reduce emissions from natural gas companies by 2030.

“Unequivocally, this administration is coming after gas stoves,” said state Sen. Holly Schepisi, a Republican who represents part of Bergen and Passaic counties.

She contends Democrats and the Murphy administration won’t admit it, but after the state legislative elections in November, the governor will establish new regulations that restrict consumer choice about natural gas.

Schepisi said that’s why she posted on social media last month that the BPU was meeting “to ban your stoves,” even though its proposal only included a framework for consumer incentives.

Her statement echoed comments several Republicans have made on social media and in news articles. In a guest column published on NJ.com, state Sen. Anthony Bucco wrote that Murphy had “forged ahead with his effort to invasively mandate total electrification for more than 2.9 million customers” who use natural gas. Murphy has said he has no plans to ban gas stoves.

The BPU also refuted it.

“We are not requiring, we are not mandating anyone to give up their gas stove,” BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso said at the July 26 meeting, when the board voted unanimously for the incentive framework. “There has been a lot of misinformation and, yes, fearmongering out there, and I want to put an end to it once and for all.

“We are not coming for your gas stove or your local pizza shop’s oven. We are not forcing you, anyone, to do anything in any way,” Fiordaliso added.

A day after the BPU vote, state Sen. Joe Pennacchio, a Republican serving parts of Essex and Morris counties, introduced legislation to keep state or local authorities from banning gas stoves and ovens. He described the BPU action as advancing plans for “eliminating natural gas and electrifying everything.”

The BPU has never considered a gas stove ban during the Murphy administration, said Peter Peretzman, a spokesperson for the board. He added that it also hasn’t considered whether it has the legal authority to pursue one.

In the past year, Republicans have opposed the development of offshore wind power in New Jersey and linked preparatory work for installing wind turbines to increased whale deaths, despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration saying there’s no evidence of any link. They also oppose the Murphy administration's push to electrify cars, trucks and buses.

Schepisi described the administration’s initiatives as too extreme for the environmental threats at hand.

“I have a tendency not to take a sky-is-falling approach,” Schepisi said, adding that news reports tend to cause more alarm than is warranted. “It's either COVID or some sort of new bio thing that's gonna wipe us out or focusing on weather.”

A European climate monitoring organization this week deemed July 2023 Earth’s hottest month on record, and the NOAA said on Tuesday that the U.S. has had a record 15 weather disasters causing at least $1 billion in damage this year. An analysis by Climate Central this year found the number of days with a high risk of fire in New Jersey and coastal New York is also rising — 10 more days each year than in 1973.

Schepisi said she believes climate change is happening, but that it would be better to take a more gradual approach to shifting energy consumption away from oil and gas. It’s a stance many Republicans in New Jersey take.

“Frankly, I think it's refreshing that we have a policy dispute that's not nasty and personal and kind of made up,” said Mike DuHaime, president of MAD Global Strategies and a leading Republican political consultant in New Jersey. “I mean, there are legit policy differences here on energy.”

DuHaime said natural gas should not be phased out as quickly as the Murphy administration is planning, and argues most of the current reduction in emissions is being achieved with the use of gas over oil and coal.

“So when you start talking about banning gas stoves and things of that nature, I think you're going to alienate the center of the electorate politically because it's just not smart public policy,” he said.

It's a potent issue that also appeals to those beyond of the electorate's center — including members of the GOP's far right. Fox News has presented a steady drumbeat against reducing the use of gas stoves. In one report, Fox News host Jimmy Failla called New York Gov. Kathy Hochul a hypocrite because she signed a bill that phases out the use of gas stoves in new construction, yet they were able to dig up a photo of her standing in front of a gas stove. The New York measure does not require residents to give up their existing stoves.

Mother Jones magazine found that the oil and gas industry was responsible for much of the funding behind campaigns to support the use of gas stoves, including paying social media influencers to tout the advantages of cooking with gas.

A 2020 national poll on climate change found that while consumers don’t care much about what kind of fuel heats their home and water, but they do care about their stoves.

“That's what the crux of this debate is about, is that we have a monopoly system by the fossil fuel industry from home heating with oil and gas saying, ‘We like the status quo quite fine,’” said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. “And then suddenly you have a threat to that monopoly, which is electrification.

“You have much more superior products that are starting to take away market share and that's ultimately what this is about is the fossil fuel industry raising its hackles because they have real competition for the first time,” O’Malley said.

Last year, a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll found 72% of New Jersey residents consider changing climate conditions to be a serious threat. But the political divide shows up in the breakdown, where 95% of Democrats say it’s a very or somewhat serious threat, but only 38% of Republicans register the same alarm.

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