BY KYLE LOVERN
I’m sure many of you grew up in a time when your moms or grandmothers cooked on a gas stove. Many of us heated our homes with gas heaters or furnaces.
We had an electric cooking stove in our old home place at Nolan, but we heated our home in the winter with a gas furnace. The bathroom had a small gas heater to warm up that room before taking a bath in the old cast iron tub. A gas-powered water heater heated our hot water.
Imagine someone telling your grandma she can no longer cook on a gas stove!
The move by some states and cities to ban gas cooking stoves is a bit much – even for environmentalists.
Government overreach is getting out of hand. I thought we lived in a free country.
According to many national news agencies, the House Oversight Republicans held a subcommittee hearing recently titled “Consumer Choice on the Back-burner: Examining the Biden Administration’s Regulatory Assault on Americans’ Gas Stoves.” Republican Party lawmakers have accused the Energy Department of effectively banning new gas stoves with strict new energy efficiency standards, while the Biden administration has repeatedly denied they want to ban gas stoves.
Gas stoves and furnaces will be banned from most new buildings in New York state under a new measure passed by lawmakers.
Most people would agree that the federal government has exceeded its constitutional bounds.
Along with imposing a vaccine mandate, the government is telling us how to fuel our cars, heat our homes, educate our children and treat their ailments, zone our communities and construct our roads—all of which represents a vast expansion of federal powers undermining political accountability.
Although I took the COVID vaccines, I believe it should be up to an individual if he or she wants to get the shots. If I don’t want to purchase an electric-powered car, I should not have to do so.
Controlling your health care and what doctor you can visit is another fine line being skated. Something like this is close to socialism.
Both liberals and conservatives have agreed on many issues of government overreach that have gone too far.
In 2022, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pledging to do what it takes to stop government officials at all levels.
Biden’s Food and Drug Administration pushed the button by promising to regulate menthol cigarettes out of existence, something anti-smoking activists have advocated for better than a decade. If the FDA gets its way, there will be no more Salems, Kools and Newports.
I have never been a smoker, but I don’t think it is right to infringe on individual rights.
Here are some other examples of government overreach that happened during the pandemic. And most of these were outdoors.
In San Clemente, California, a skate park was filled with 37 tons of sand to keep the skateboarders at home. But the plan backfired as dirt bike riders and sunbathers showed up to make use of the new course and makeshift beach.
An Idaho woman was threatened with six months of jail for selling items in her front yard. Police said her yard sale violated the ban on nonessential businesses.
A former Colorado state trooper was handcuffed for playing catch with his daughter. After being detained for a few minutes, he was released without charge because he didn’t break any laws.
Philadelphia cops dragged a man off a bus for not wearing a face mask. That may have been a bit harsh.
Police officers in Los Angeles were ordered to shut down a 1-year-old’s birthday party because the 30 party-goers reportedly were not social distancing. Once again, if it was outside and most attendees were family members, why should officials have wasted their time with this? I’m sure there were other crimes they could have been attending to, especially in California.
So if you or your Maw Maw still cooks with a gas stove, and the government comes knocking, don’t answer the door.
(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)