The House Freedom Caucus on Tuesday tanked legislation to restrict federal regulation of natural gas stoves in an act of defiance against House GOP leadership.
The vote was in retaliation for the passage of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deal with President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling, which the Freedom Caucus strongly opposed as too weak on cutting federal spending.
Twelve Republicans voted against moving forward with debate on four pieces of legislation, including two bills dealing with the regulation of gas stoves, joining 208 Democrats to block the measures.
Failure to advance a rule is a rarity in the House. The last time it occurred was November 2002.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said the 12 Republicans voted against the rule because of how GOP leadership handled the debt ceiling negotiations.
“Today, we took down the rule because we’re frustrated at the way this place is operating,” Gaetz told reporters. “We took a stand in January to end the era of the imperial speakership. We’re concerned that the fundamental commitments that allowed Kevin McCarthy to assume the speakership have been violated as a consequence of the debt limit deal.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who as a member of the Rules Committee voted Monday to advance the four GOP-led bills to the full House, was also among the “no” votes to thwart debate on the measures.
Roy said Tuesday the direction Congress took in raising the debt ceiling “was a failure.”
“We warned them not to cut that deal without coming down and sit down and talk to us. So this is all about restoring a process that will fundamentally change things back to what was working,” Roy said.
Two of the bills in question would restrict the federal government’s ability to regulate or ban gas stoves.
A third would seek to limit agency discretion by authorizing federal courts that review agency actions to decide all relevant questions of law associated with a given action without deferring to previous legal determinations by the agency. The other bill would subject major agency actions to congressional approval.
