‘Putting profit over people': big gas is waging war on a California clean air rule

The Guardian

04-06-2025

This story is co-published with Floodlight.
On a windy night in early January, Barbara Ishida, a second grade teacher, spotted the Eaton fire glowing in the hills behind her home in Altadena, California. Her mind turned to the deadly wildfires in Lahaina and Paradise and she thought, 'Let's get out – now.'
Ishida and her husband evacuated safely, but the flames destroyed their home. An attribution study found that climate change, which is primarily caused by burning fossil fuels, made the January fires 35% more likely.
She thought the least they could do is rebuild in a way that wouldn't compound the climate crisis that raised the fire risk.
'Building back is our only option at this point,' Ishida said, 'so we're going to build back super environmentally friendly.'
Her vision is to build a fire-resistant home with no gas appliances. That approach is backed by a University of California Berkeley study in April that concluded all-electric construction is the best and most climate-friendly strategy to rebuild after the fires.
But the gas industry is pushing back against this idea. Proposed rules that would have encouraged Ishida and other homeowners to buy furnaces and heaters that emit no nitrogen oxides (NOx) – a key pollutant from gas appliances – have been weakened and delayed by a coalition of groups that includes SoCalGas, the country's largest gas utility.
SoCalGas has a history of lobbying hard against regulations that hurt its bottom line. After a fierce opposition campaign, the rules are going to a vote on Friday, 6 June.
The rules are proposed by the south coast air quality management district (SCAQMD), the agency responsible for improving air quality in Los Angeles and nearby communities, one of the most polluted air basins in the United States.
If passed, the rules are designed to create cleaner air and reduce planet-heating emissions by setting future targets for sales of new zero-emission space and water heaters. The rules would apply to manufacturers, distributors, sellers and installers. They are expected to prevent 2,490 premature deaths and avoid 10,200 asthma cases.
'Consumers will continue to have a choice of purchasing either a gas or electric space/water heaters when replacing their existing units,' explained Nahal Mogharabi, a spokesperson for the air-quality district. 'Importantly, consumers can continue to operate their existing units until the consumer chooses to replace it or the unit breaks.'
SoCalGas defended its role in the opposition campaign. 'SoCalGas' stakeholder engagement and outreach efforts on this topic are a regular part of any rulemaking process where we share information that could affect Southern California customers,' Erica Berardi, a SoCalGas spokesperson, wrote in an email.
BizFed, a business group that was also part of the opposition campaign, advocated for a delay in the rule-making process 'to allow for more transparency and sufficient public outreach to make Southern Californians aware of the significant costs associated with these changes', Elizabeth Daubel, communications director for BizFed, wrote in an email.
At the same time that the opposition campaign ramped up, groups allied with the gas industry filed a lawsuit against the SCAQMD, aiming to undermine its authority to impose such regulations.
The opposition is far from unique; a February report by a London-based thinktank InfluenceMap found that fossil fuel companies in the United States, European Union and Australia are waging parallel campaigns against laws that restrict use of gas in buildings – pushback that has largely succeeded in preventing and weakening these laws.
Ishida signed a letter supporting the proposed SCAQMD rules because she believes they would encourage Altadena to build back in a sustainable way. When she heard about the organized opposition to the rules, Ishida felt angry.
'They're just putting profits over people,' she said. 'It's sad and it's selfish and it's not right.'
Although progressive states like California are leading the transition away from fossil fuels, gas appliances remain ubiquitous in California homes and across the western United States.
Buildings account for one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in California but are subject to local control, meaning that local regulators like the SCAQMD have a big role to play in lowering emissions.
In 2023, recognizing the air pollution caused by gas appliances, the agency proposed amendments to two rules to encourage alternatives. Changes to Rules 1111 and 1121 would establish a zero-emission NOx standard for furnaces and water heaters.
As originally written, the new rules would have impacted more than 10m gas-fired residential and commercial furnaces and residential water heaters. The rules would not affect gas stoves, a flashpoint in similar regulatory efforts.
As they were written in October 2024, the proposed rules would have required all furnaces and water heaters installed to become zero emission by 2026 for new residential and commercial buildings. Existing buildings and mobile homes had a few more years to comply.
But in recent months, SCAQMD staff have softened the proposed rules. The current version now requires manufacturers to meet zero-emission sales targets for residential buildings, starting at 30% in 2027-28 and rising to 90% by 2036. The rule no longer requires that all new furnaces and water heaters be zero emission by a certain date.
The original rules would have reduced NOx emissions by 10 tons a day, which would have been the largest emissions reducing rule package adopted in over three decades by the SCAQMD. The revised rules would achieve a reduction of 6 tons a day of NOx emissions.
Kim Orbe, senior conservation program manager at Sierra Club, said pushing back the compliance date would allow manufacturers to continue building gas-powered equipment for years to come. She described the rules as 'tremendously weakened'.
In late 2024, an opposition campaign sprung up, prompting SCAQMD's board to push back a scheduled hearing and final vote by six months, to Tuesday 6 June.
SoCalGas and groups aligned with the company helped delay the rule-making process by encouraging public officials to oppose the rules, according to records obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute and shared with Floodlight.
Ahead of a major SCAQMD meeting on 20 December, SoCalGas employees sent 'urgent' requests to public officials, including mayors of cities in the south coast area, asking them to send letters, testify and pass resolutions opposing the rules.
Their emails claimed – misleadingly – that the rules would prohibit the sale and installation of all gas furnaces and water heaters.
Some of the letters that SCAQMD received from public officials were drafted by a consultant working for BizFed. Several city governments copied the consultant's draft letter onto their letterhead. Almost word-for-word letters were sent to the SCAQMD by the Orange county council of governments, the city of Lake Forest and the city of Loma Linda.
The response to the rules was overwhelming, generating over 12,500 comments. But staff reported that many letters opposing the rules contained faulty information, including that the rules would mandate homeowners switch to all-electric appliances.
The governing board delayed the vote and modified the rules to give more time to address concerns about 'cost, technology availability and consumer choice', Mogharabi wrote in an email.
'Even though the rule has been modified, as is typical during the rule-making process,' she added, 'the current NOx reductions are significant.'
Mogharabi noted that this summer, the agency is launching a Go Zero rebate program that will provide more than $21m to help residents and small businesses install zero-emission heating appliances.
On 10 January 2025, as unprecedented megafires burned out of control in Los Angeles – destroying thousands of homes and killing 30 people – SCAQMD officials held a public meeting to consider the proposed rules 1111 and 1121.
The tone of the meeting was somber. Officials began by acknowledging the wildfires and smoke cloaking the city, offering condolences to a board member who lost his home to the flames. Minutes later, lobbyists including a representative of SoCalGas asked for the rules to be delayed or retracted, citing the lawsuit challenging SCAQMD's authority to make such rules.
Jessi Davis, a SoCalGas lobbyist said, 'We think it would be prudent for the board to postpone this rulemaking until these issues are resolved by the courts.'
In December, a coalition of groups, including homebuilders, restaurant owners and unions, filed the lawsuit against the SCAQMD, seeking to overturn a related rule that phases out large gas-fired furnaces and water heaters in commercial and industrial facilities. That rule is different from the proposed rules, which are specific to smaller residential and commercial furnaces and water heaters.
'The legal theories they're trying to push would undermine the ability of the (agency) to protect its residents,' said Adrian Martinez, an attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental nonprofit that is intervening in the case. 'They're attempting to strip local entities like SCAQMD of the ability to clean up pollution.'
With another wildfire season on the horizon, Ishida is thinking about the future of Los Angeles if climate change continues to worsen. 'We're not going to be the only community that burns,' Ishida said. 'We're not going to be the last if we continue down this stretch.'
Floodlight is a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.