California lawmakers have given celebrity chef Jos Andrs’ restaurant a special exemption to cook with gas stoves, and Republicans in Congress are outraged.

GOP politicians made that much clear on the House floor Tuesday afternoon when they repeatedly railed against California municipalities’ gas hookup regulations and what they described as the hypocrisy of California liberals in a tense debate over their new favorite topic: gas stoves.

The House passed a bill titled Gas Stove Protection and Liberty Bill by 248 to 180 on Tuesday that would prevent the Biden administration from enacting bans on gas stoves, mostly along party lines. The administration has not announced any plans to ban the devices.

But the GOP law is in response to a real effort developed by California cities, including Los Angeles, to ban new connections to gas lines to fight climate change and protect people from indoor air pollution.

The GOP’s gas stove legislation will struggle to make it to the floor of the Democrat-controlled Senate. But the bill allows Republicans to continue their public campaign to protect the devices.

In their remarks on the House floor Tuesday, Republicans chose the Golden State. Several people criticized Palo Alto for imposing a gas connection ban but allowing Andrs an exemption from the rule after a property developer threatened to sue. The boss got the exemption for his new one

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asters mediterranean restaurant

Zaytinya

because gas is needed to cultivate its unique flavors.

Florida GOP Representative Gus Bilirakis called the exemption for Andres “a carve-out from the left.”

“This celebrity chef and his wealthy, popular, National Democratic friends who won’t give up their gas stoves … these are the very same people who are lecturing my constituents about climate change,” Ohio Representative Bill Johnson said.

Despite Palo Alto’s ban on natural gas, Jos Andrs can cook with it in his new restaurant

Lawmakers in Berkeley kicked off the gas hookup debate four years ago with a ban on new gas hookups, which has since stalled in court. A wave of cities in the Golden State followed Berkeley’s lead, and the Los Angeles City Council voted in 2022 to ban most gas appliances in new construction.

Then Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden-appointed member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, sparked GOP suspicions when he told Bloomberg News in January that a federal ban on new gas stoves was “on the table,” a statement the president of the commission later withdrew.

On the House floor, Republicans pointed to California laws as examples of unfair progressive legislation, saying they don’t want policies like Berkeley’s gas hookup ban to go national.

While the progressive city of Palo Alto, California

.

has a natural gas ban on all new buildings and renovations, a policy that Democrats across the country are trying to implement, the ban doesn’t apply to everyone,” Johnson said.

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers

(R-was.)

stressed that the Palo Alto exemption would have been fine for Andres if it had been granted to every resident.

“We can all agree today that every hard-working person in this country, regardless of income or celebrity, has the same freedom,” said McMorris Rodgers.

House Democrats reminded their GOP colleagues that the Biden administration had not formally proposed a ban on gas stoves. Most existing gas appliance regulations apply to the construction of new buildings and do not prohibit stoves that Americans already use.

“The idea of ​​someone coming into American homes to remove gas stoves is ludicrous,” Representative Frank Pallone said

Jr

from New Jersey. “They don’t ban gas stoves. But these facts haven’t stopped supporters of this bill from touting this false narrative to scare consumers.”

the

Consumer Product Safety Commission

has approved a request for information in an effort to increase its understanding of the potential health risks of gas stoves and possible solutions to the associated hazards. In a letter, Trumka wrote that the request “advances our commitment to American consumers because the first step in addressing a potential hazard is understanding its magnitude and options for addressing it.”

The gas stove vote was one of the first the House has held since last week, when a group of conservatives halted all action on the floor in protest of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s concessions during debt ceiling negotiations.

This is according to the most recent national survey

by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California,

roomy

1 out of 5

adults in the state approve of how Congress does its job

the lowest share

In five years.