Overall crime in Washington, D.C., is up by 25% since last year, with homicides up by 20% and vehicle theft by 106% in the past several months alone. But the district's top law enforcement official has more important things to worry about — namely, how to stop residents from purchasing and using gas stoves.

“Today, I'm leading 11 AGs calling for federal action to address the health & safety risks of gas stoves, which emit pollutants that have a disparate negative impact on children & underserved communities and put DC residents at risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses," Attorney General Brian Schwalb tweeted this week.

A letter signed by the attorneys general indicates that “a significant amount of evidence has accumulated raising concerns about the pollutants from gas stoves found in U.S households,” and it urges the Consumer Product Safety Commission to study the “harms” caused by gas stoves and then take action to mitigate them.

"District residents are entitled to carry out everyday tasks like cooking without risk to their health and well-being," Schwalb added.

Schwalb’s crusade against gas stoves is not just an example of bad priorities — it’s also bad science. The largest peer-reviewed analysis of a link between gas stoves and childhood asthma found “no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

There’s also the inconvenient fact that many consumers prefer gas stoves to electric stoves in spite of any supposed health risks. Close to 40% of homes in the United States use gas stoves, as do the majority of restaurants.

Schwalb should stop trying to micromanage consumer decisions and instead turn his attention to the real problems plaguing the district's residents, such as the U.S. attorney's failure to prosecute nearly 70% of the people arrested by police in 2022.