The Biden-Harris administration released data on Oct. 17 suggesting its push to electrify everything will ratchet up costs for American households, contradicting one of the White House’s favorite selling points for its green agenda, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Biden-Harris administration has made a crackdown on residential fossil fuel consumption a key aspect of its environmental strategy, justifying the push in part on the grounds electrification will lower energy costs. Now, Oct. 17 residential energy price data from the Department of Energy (DOE) shows electricity was roughly four times as expensive as natural gas in 2024, with experts telling the DCNF the White House’s electrification push is an example of extremist climate policy hurting everyday Americans.
“The Department of Energy has consistently shown that natural gas is a much cheaper energy source for households than electricity,” Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, told the DCNF. “Government policies trying to block the use of natural gas in favor of electricity will significantly drive up prices, making home heating and appliance use needlessly expensive. The poor will get hurt the most because, compared to higher income households, they spend a greater share of their household income on meeting basic needs such as staying warm in the winter.”
AOC Attacks Republicans Over Gas Stoves
OCASIO-CORTEZ: “I do think it’s funny, the…absolute…Republican meltdown…’You can’t take my gas stove…How dare you…You have a gas stove.’
“First of all, I rent.” pic.twitter.com/F32HhSzEga— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 13, 2023
The Biden-Harris DOE has issued a slew of rules restricting the use of gas appliances, including issuing revised standards on furnaces in September 2023 that could prohibit 40-60% of gas furnaces in homes, and increased efficiency requirements for water heaters that the agency claimed would save U.S. consumers $11.4 billion on their energy and water bills every year.
The Oct. 17 data showed electricity was significantly more expensive than fossil fuels, with a price of $47.36 per million British Thermal Units (BTU) compared to $13.38 and $33.59 per million BTU for natural gas and propane respectively. Thus, according to the Biden-Harris administration’s own data, switching from gas-powered appliances to electric appliances could increase utility costs by over 3.5 times, in addition to heightened installation costs.
“One of the most offensive bait-and-switch moves being played by officials in Washington D.C. and coastal enclaves is the push to force electric appliances on everyone, everywhere, even when natural gas can often be dramatically cheaper,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers and the former solicitor general of Arizona, told the DCNF. “The officials push the idea that bans on gas stoves, or gas furnaces, or other gas appliances will save on energy costs, but at the same time they have evidence that natural gas is cheaper…It’s time that officials in D.C. stopped trying to micromanage people’s lives and make everyone hew to a one size fits all approach to their homes.”
Energy sector expert Robert Bryce accused the Biden-Harris administration of purposely delaying the release of the price data on Oct. 3, citing the fact that, at least since 2011, the DOE has never published the information later than August. At the time — two weeks before the data was published — he predicted the agency was stonewalling because the cost figures would reflect the high costs of electricity relative to fossil fuels, which has proven to be accurate.
“This electrification push is a typical example of climate extremism,” Bakst told the DCNF. “There’s little to no consideration of how these policies will hurt Americans and the poor.”
An “electrification summit” held by the White House in December 2022 included non-governmental organization Rewiring America, which has previously stated its goal is to “electrify everything.”
The DOE did not respond to a request for comment.
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