New Gov’t Data Suggests Biden Admin’s Anti-Gas Appliance Push Could Make Home Heating Way More Expensive

• Americans using electric heating systems, favored by the Biden administration’s climate agenda, will pay significantly more to keep their homes warm this winter than Americans using natural gas, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
• Those who use electricity to heat their homes will pay $1,063 on average this winter, while Americans using natural gas will pay an average of $601 to keep their homes warm, according to the EIA data.
• Attempts to phase out the use of natural gas for home heating and other purposes “would raise costs to consumers, jeopardize environmental progress and deny affordable energy to underserved populations,” American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Americans who heat their homes with electricity could see costs increase this winter as the Biden administration forges ahead with its broad push to diminish the use of fossil fuels in homes and buildings, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Those who rely on electricity to heat their homes will pay an average of $1,063 this upcoming winter, approximately 77% more than Americans using natural gas, who will pay an average of $601 to keep their homes warm, according to the EIA’s projections. The Biden administration, with the encouragement of environmentalist advocacy groups, has proposed regulations and rolled out subsidy programs designed to decrease the use of oil and gas products for home heating and other purposes, citing a perceived need to decrease carbon emissions they generate.

“Natural gas has been one of the principal drivers to achieving our nation’s environmental and economic goals. From providing affordable energy to consumers to driving down emissions, the benefits this fuel has for our nation are tangible and impossible to ignore,” American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Attempts to phase out the use of natural gas for home heating and other uses “would raise costs to consumers, jeopardize environmental progress and deny affordable energy to underserved populations,” she added.

The discrepancy in prices is even more pronounced in the Northeast, where the average cost for using electricity to heat a home is expected to be $1,465, a figure that is about 92% higher than the $761 that natural gas users can expect to pay on average, according to the EIA data.

The effort to change how Americans heat their homes using government action is part of a larger push from the Biden administration to have Americans adopt an array of more efficient, and more expensive, electric appliances in order to fight climate change. As it does on the heating front, the administration uses both regulation, such as its move to phase out gas-powered generators and pool pump motors, and subsidies, like the $2,000 heat pump tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act, to advance its agenda.

Other appliances the administration has targeted include water heaters, refrigerators and clothes washers. Concurrently, federal agencies, led by the Energy Department, are assisting municipal governments to modify their building codes in ways that limit or ban the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

Well-funded environmentalist organizations like the Sierra Club and Rewiring America have advocated for the electrification of American homes, and a coalition of 23 state governors has teamed up with the White House to aggressively expand heat pump installations in the effort to reduce the share of Americans relying on natural gas to keep their homes at a comfortable temperature.

The push to electrify home heating and appliances despite their typically higher cost is occurring amid a backdrop of high inflation that is especially hurting the country’s working- and middle-class families.

“The political appointees in the White House, guys like John Podesta, are more interested in helping their big money backers in the green movement than they are in helping provide relief for working-class American families,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told the DCNF. “Higher electricity prices don’t hurt wealthy coastal elites, but they crush the poor, seniors and those living on fixed incomes.”

The White House and the Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.