Topline:
Southern California air regulators voted Friday to go back to the drawing board on a plan to phase out gas water heaters and furnaces. The board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District rejected the rules after hours of public comment, with many people expressing worries about housing costs. The move came after a Trump administration prosecutor threatened to sue if the policy was enacted.
What the rules said: Rules 1111 and 1121 would have required manufacturers to gradually start selling more zero-emissions furnaces and water heaters, rising to 90% by 2036. Traditional gas-powered appliances would have still been for sale, but manufacturers would have had to pay surcharges for those units, a cost they would be likely to pass on to consumers.
The background: For about two years, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air quality across much of L.A., Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, had been working to update regulations for gas furnaces and water heaters, as well as incentivize replacing them with less polluting electric appliances, such as heat pumps. Affected appliance manufacturers and utilities, such as SoCal Gas, had lobbied against the rules for months.
The controversy: On Thursday, a federal prosecutor threatened to sue the AQMD if it passed the rules. “California regulators are on notice: If you pass illegal bans or penalties on gas appliances, we’ll see you in court,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a post on X. “The law is clear — feds set energy policy, not unelected climate bureaucrats.” In discussion before the vote, some board members cited the threat of a federal suit as one of the reasons they would vote no…