Manchin pulls support for Biden energy nominee over appliance efficiency rules

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has canceled a scheduled hearing and pulled his support for President Biden’s nomination for a key renewable energy post, the latest salvo between him and the White House over fossil fuel policy.

The Senate panel was set to consider the nomination of Jeff Marootian for assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy on Wednesday, but the vote has been removed from the committee’s agenda.

“While I supported Mr. Marootian’s nomination in December, since then the office he’s been nominated to lead has proposed stove efficiency rules that I’ve raised concerns about,” Manchin said in a statement to The Hill. “While I appreciate that these rules would only apply to new stoves, my view is that it’s part of a broader, Administration-wide effort to eliminate fossil fuels. For that reason, I’m not comfortable moving forward with Mr. Marootian at this time.”

Biden nominated Marootian, an adviser to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, last year, renominating him in January after his nomination made it out of committee but was never brought to the full Senate.

Granholm told the House Appropriations Committee in March the Energy Department’s proposed regulations for new gas stoves would not affect half of the gas stove models that are on the market.

“The gas stoves that would be impacted are … the most expensive gas stoves,” she said, adding that these stoves can have oval-shaped burners that release an excess amount of natural gas. “This does not impact the majority, and it certainly doesn’t say that anybody who has a gas stove would have their gas stove taken away. … There’s no ban on gas stoves. I have a gas stove. It is just about making the existing electric and gas stoves and all the other appliances more efficient.”

The Hill has reached out to the Energy Department for comment.

Widespread backlash also circulated in early 2023 after a consumer product safety agency solicited comments on a possible phaseout of future gas stove production, inaccurately characterized as a “ban” on all gas stoves in some cases.

Manchin, one of the most vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators in 2024, has increasingly taken aim at the Biden administration on energy and environmental policies in recent months. Last week, he vowed to block all Environmental Protection Agency nominees until the agency “halt their government overreach.”

Rachel Frazin contributed.