Gas appliances’ days are numbered

By ALEXANDER NIEVES

08/10/2023 07:33 PM EDT

Presented by Connected Commerce Council

TURN OFF THE GAS: The growing movement to ban gas appliances in homes and businesses has largely failed to take hold in populous Southern California. That’s about to change.

The regulator tasked with managing air quality in the South Coast basin — a massive region that crosses four counties and is home to 17 million people — voted on Friday to phase out gas-powered commercial ovens that companies like Frito-Lay and Bimbo use to pump out large quantities of chips, bread and tortillas.

The rule itself has little impact on the vast majority of residents in the region, but it signals the agency’s new push for zero-emission technology across all sectors.

Next up on the agenda for the South Coast Air Quality Management District — whose rules apply to all of Orange County and non-desert portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties — are the gas space heaters and water heaters that many residents still have in their homes.

California last year announced that new furnaces and water heaters purchased starting in 2030 will have to be electric, as the state tries to cut down pollution and greenhouse gases that fuel climate change. But that wouldn’t stop South Coast regulators from setting a more aggressive phase-out timeline, akin to what the Bay Area’s air quality district did earlier this year when it set 2027 as the start date for all-electric water heater sales.

SCAQMD also has its eyes on gas stoves, ovens and other cooking appliances, and could start drafting rules in the next few months. The process is bound to be contentious, as the restaurant industry decries proposed gas bans that it contends would derail businesses.

Langer's Delicatessen-Restaurant in Los Angeles in June 2021. The restaurant industry opposes bans on gas-powered equipment, saying they would derail businesses. | AFP via Getty Images

More than 70 cities and counties — largely centered in the Bay Area — have moved to ban natural gas hookups or dissuade builders from including them in new construction. Only the cities of Los Angeles, Glendale and Pasadena have implemented similar rules in the South Coast, and the latter two included carve-outs for commercial kitchens.

But these sorts of regulations are in question after a federal appeals court raised doubts about Berkeley’s ordinance. A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit reversed a lower-court ruling that upheld the city’s regulations and tossed it back for more deliberations, arguing it very likely violated federal energy laws.

That rationale shouldn’t apply to rules set by air districts, which have wide authority to tackle emissions under the Clean Air Act, according to Bill Magavern, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air.

The South Coast region — which routinely ranks as the most polluted in the country — has a long way to go if it wants to meet federal emissions standards. The regulator estimates it needs to reduce airborne pollutants 70 percent by 2037 to be in compliance.

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WILDFIRE AID: California is sending 11 members of its urban search-and-rescue team and personnel from the state’s Office of Emergency Services to Hawaii as local officials search for survivors of rapidly moving wildfires that have wreaked havoc on Maui, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced in a press release today.

Maui County officials said early today that the death toll had risen to 36 and that 11,000 people were still without power after devastating blazes ripped through the island, propelled by strong winds linked to a hurricane moving through the ocean 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. The fires, which started Tuesday night, destroyed much of Lahaina, a historic town of around 13,000 people and a popular tourist destination.

The blaze that hit Lahaina is 80 percent contained, officials said. Two separate fires are burning on Maui, and a third is reported on the island of Hawaii.

KIDS’ CARE: Newsom’s plan to revamp the way the state pays for mental health care could lead to a $718 million funding cut for programs to treat children and youth, according to an analysis out today from the Legislative Analyst’s office.

The governor’s proposal sets aside a third of county mental health budgets for housing interventions and a third for intensive services for patients with severe mental health issues. While some children could be helped from those pots of money, most programming for children and youth — along with dozens of other county programs — would fall into the third bucket.

The LAO recommended the Legislature add spending requirements for kids and youth. We’ll know next week at the Senate Health hearing whether the administration heeds that advice. — Rachel Bluth

AG APOLOGIZES: Attorney General Rob Bonta formally apologized today for the role of the attorney general’s office in forcibly incarcerating Japanese American Californians during World War II. The apology came on the 35th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s Civil Liberties Act of 1988, in which Reagan granted surviving Japanese Americans reparations and formally apologized to them.

“The California Attorney General’s Office deeply regrets its past complicity in these heinous violations of civil rights, and with this apology, recommits to its mission of protecting and defending civil liberties for all Americans,” Bonta said in a statement. In 2020, the Assembly issued an apology after Newsom instituted a Day of Remembrance.

Bonta also put in a plug for his own administration’s efforts around racial equity, including his collaboration with big-city mayors to address hate crimes. — Sejal Govindarao

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