Regulators in the San Francisco Bay Area voted Wednesday to eliminate the sale and installation of natural gas-powered furnaces and water heaters over eight years beginning in 2027, ostensibly to limit air pollution.
The vote was the latest step taken by left-wing jurisdictions against natural gas — a convenient and relatively clean-burning source of fuel.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported (original links):
Bay Area regulators voted Wednesday to adopt rules to phase out the sale and installation of natural-gas furnaces and water heaters over the next eight years, one of the most ambitious plans in the country to replace gas appliances with electric alternatives.
The rules, approved by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, are meant to reduce air pollution from some of the worst home-appliance offenders. The main pollutants targeted are nitrogen oxides, or NOx, which can cause acid rain and smog as well as increase risk for asthma and other respiratory diseases.
People will be able to repair their gas appliances if they break — but the rules take effect when existing gas-powered furnaces or water heaters no longer work and need to be replaced. New construction will also be required to have zero-NOx — effectively, electric — furnaces and water heaters.
The new policy does not affect gas stoves, but follows a 2020 decision by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new buildings. It also comes just weeks after a controversy over a proposal by the Biden administration to consider banning the sale of new gas stoves.
Democrats oppose natural gas, even though its adoption has allowed the U.S. to produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions while growing its economy, because it is still a fossil fuel and is often extracted through fracking.
Elsewhere in Los Angeles, the “Green New Deal” proposed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti (confirmed Wednesday as U.S. Ambassador to India) seeks to phase out natural gas power plants, despite possible electricity shortages.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.