‘It’s all just your imagination!’ Or at least that’s what the legacy media keeps trying to tell us every time the Biden administration opens up a new front in the War On Things That Work. That theory is about to be put to the test yet again with the latest announcement coming from Joe Biden’s Department of Energy. In a statement issued by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a person with absolutely no education or professional history in the energy sector, we were informed that new “energy efficiency regulations” are on the way that will directly impact residential natural gas furnaces. It’s not a “ban” in the traditional sense, but the new efficiency requirements being proposed will either be impossible to achieve or will drive the price of these furnaces beyond the reach of many working-class American homeowners. (Fox News)

The Biden administration announced its latest regulatory action targeting home appliances late Friday, this time targeting popular home gas-powered furnaces.

The Department of Energy (DOE) said the energy efficiency regulations would slash household utility costs by $1.5 billion on an annual basis while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the residential sector. The proposal, according to the agency, require non-weatherized gas furnaces and those used in mobile homes to achieve a far higher level of efficiency than cheaper models on the market.

“At the direction of Congress, DOE is continuing to review and finalize energy standards for household appliances, such as residential furnaces, to lower costs for working families by reducing energy use and slashing harmful pollutants in homes across the nation,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

Granholm claims that these changes are designed to “save Americans money and deliver healthier communities.” Of course, as with almost everything coming out of the Biden administration, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Current regulations require gas furnaces to convert at least 80% of the natural gas they consume into heat. The new regulations would raise the bar to 95%.

The only furnaces that currently meet that requirement are the ones with condenser technology installed. Condensing furnaces work by incorporating a second heat exchanger that recycles the furnace’s exhaust fumes, burning the small amount of unspent fuel that would normally be released. So at least in theory, you would use a fractionally smaller volume of natural gas to heat your home to the same temperature. And an equally small amount of unspent gas would not go out the chimney.

However, high-efficiency condensing furnaces are not only far more expensive than non-condensing models, but they are physically larger due to the extra heat exchanger. That means that modifications may be required to fit the new furnace in where the old one is currently located, driving up installation costs in addition to the higher sale price. The difference for a typical 2,000-square-foot house can be as much as $8,000 dollars. And in most cases, you would be replacing a fully functional furnace that you might otherwise have gotten decades of service from. So even if you manage to drive your utility bill down by twenty or thirty dollars per month, it will be a very long time before you actually realize and sort of net savings.

All of this ignores the fact that natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel we have available to use. Even the government’s Energy Information Administration admits this right on its website. Coal furnaces are almost extinct in residential buildings in the United States at this point, and furnaces that burn heating oil are increasingly rare with fewer than five million homes still having them. The energy industry has modernized natural gas technology to make such appliances vastly more efficient and “cleaner” than they used to be. But nothing is ever enough to satiate the disciples of the Green Goddess.

Impossible regulatory demands are the latest tool in the left’s kit when it comes to banning basic things that work well in the name of climate change. Biden could never get away with flatly banning gas furnaces and Congress would never legislatively issue such a ban. So they’ll simply change the regulatory structure to make them unaffordable for most people and wait for the extinction to take place through normal market forces. It’s the same thing they’re doing with gasoline-powered vehicles. They are currently aiming to raise the emissions standards so sharply in such a short period of time that the few cars that can meet them will be unaffordable and you’ll be forced to purchase an electric vehicle whether you want one or not. It’s a despicable game they are playing, but nothing short of a new administration and a thorough housecleaning in all of the regulatory agencies will reverse this course.