From article
California regulators voted Wednesday to ban gas furnaces and water heaters in one of the state’s most populated regions, a move that will likely require locals to undergo costly home renovations.
The Bay Area Air Quality District Board, a panel of appointees tasked with curbing pollutants for nine California counties, voted Wednesday to block the installation of gas-powered appliances beginning in 2027. The board acknowledged that homeowners will have to spend thousands of dollars to install electric appliances and that the pivot away from natural gas will increase energy costs.
The ban comes as Democrats nationwide set their sights on natural gas. The Biden administration has proposed a rule change that would effectively ban the sale of half of all gas stoves in the United States, a move Democrats had claimed was not on the table.
The Bay Area ban does not apply to gas stoves, though that offers little relief to residents. The ban will raise the cost of living in the overpriced Bay Area, whose residents are already more likely to move than anyone else in the nation. Locals raised objections to the proposal through public comment letters, with one Palo Alto resident noting that replacing his gas furnace could cost up to $45,000. One resident worried that apartment buildings in San Francisco and Oakland would not be able to comply with the rule because new electric units will require ground space they don’t have. Others noted the move would increase already-skyrocketing energy costs and housing prices.
Californians have already seen their electricity prices spike nearly 70 percent since 2010, as the state started to break from fossil fuels. California households pay nearly 83 percent more than the average for homes elsewhere in the United States. Regulators acknowledged in their report that on top of the expense for individual homeowners, the rules could add $243 million to $1 billion in infrastructure spending. The board assured concerned locals that it would keep tabs on the costs imposed by their ban and boasted that the rule could save 37 to 85 lives annually.
I have an electric stove. Bought the house with it.
I have a propane tank and a camping stove that I set on top of it. (I mostly cook with a cast iron skillet because dish soap smells like poison to my nose.)
I'm going to get gas appliances piped in next year and convert the whole house over to propane. Metros being one thing, CA hinterlands are really not unlike the hinterlands in the other 49 in terms of what works and which ways the law leans politically.
Even if a CA metro-centric gov make laws like that, those laws are ignored by the rest of the state as you get farther North or East, and unenforceable because the sheriff doesn't want an electric stove either and neither do the mayors, officials, or business owners.
Its not talked about, but up north people need to open carry rifles dangerous enough to handle bears and mountain lions. Those mountains can be dangerous.