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Yet the gas stove furor is emblematic of Republicans’ broader efforts to thrust President Biden’s environmental agenda into the nation’s ongoing culture wars. With the GOP taking control of the House, these efforts could increase pressure on federal agencies as they race to finalize climate regulations over the next two years, experts say.

In particular, the Securities and Exchange Commission could succumb to political pressure to water down its landmark proposal to require big businesses to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from climate change, according to experts on sustainable investing.

“There is a significant danger when science and markets get so politicized that even deliberation of commonsense health or climate measures gets turned into a political football,” Ivan Frishberg, chief sustainability officer at Amalgamated Bank, said in an email to The Climate 202.

Here’s what to know about the gas stove controversy — and the challenges it could foreshadow for Biden’s climate agenda:

The controversy was ignited when Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., a Democrat, said in an interview Monday that the agency will consider regulations on indoor air pollution from gas stoves, adding that a ban on the appliances is a possibility.

The commission chair, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, walked back Trumka’s comments in a statement Wednesday morning but reiterated that the agency will look at possible ways to curb gas stoves’ emissions. Research has linked their pollution to childhood asthma and other respiratory problems, along with climate change.

“Research indicates that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous, and the CPSC is looking for ways to reduce related indoor air quality hazards,” Hoehn-Saric said. “But to be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.”

Yet the flame was already lit. Trumka’s comment prompted loud complaints from Republicans, with Rep. Ronny Jackson tweeting that the “maniacs in the White House” would need to pry his gas stove from his “cold dead hands.”

The backlash was bipartisan. Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a conservative Democrat, tweeted that a ban on gas stoves would be a “recipe for disaster,” adding that “the federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner.”

The SEC has also faced intense backlash from conservative lawmakers and businesses over its proposal to require all publicly traded companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related risks.

• Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are gearing up to grill Gary Gensler, the Democratic chairman of the SEC, about the rule, which Chair Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.) says is part of a “far-left social agenda" and others see as part of “woke capitalism.”
• Meanwhile, some businesses have pushed for the SEC rule to omit “scope 3” emissions, or those generated by suppliers and customers, such as drivers filling up their cars with gasoline.

As a result, Witold Henisz, faculty director of the ESG Initiative at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Climate 202 that he expects the SEC to exclude scope 3 emissions when it finalizes the rule as soon as next month.

While GOP opposition may carry real risks for the SEC, however, Henisz said the Republican gripes about gas stoves seem more like political theater intended to rile up the party’s base.

“Whether there was really any intent to ban gas stoves, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It makes for good headlines.”

At the Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, polluting industries have argued against tougher restrictions on soot, a deadly air pollutant, and are likely to challenge the new standards.

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), one of Congress’s most vocal climate advocates, called on the EPA and other agencies to resist the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to weaken environmental rules following the passage of Democrats’ landmark climate law.

“Now that we’ve passed the most significant climate and clean energy legislation in history, Big Oil and Big Gas and their astro-turf allies are preparing to wage a historic battle at federal agencies to delay, defang and deregulate,” Markey said in a statement to The Climate 202.

“The Biden administration must stand up to this corrupt campaign and swiftly execute ambitious rules and regulations that will unleash the full, transformational potential of the Inflation Reduction Act in communities across the nation,” he said. “We have no time and no planet to waste.”