Science shows gas stoves pose risk

Overnight, gas stoves have become the latest flashpoint in America’s culture war — and once again, the scientists and regulators working to protect our health are up against an onslaught of misinformation from the fossil fuel industry and its allies.

It all started with the release of a new peer-reviewed study documenting that gas stoves are responsible for 1 in 5 childhood asthma cases in California, and 1 in 8 cases across the U.S. For decades, a major contributor to our state’s asthma epidemic has been hiding in plain sight, right inside our own homes.

This study, from researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Sydney, is the first to estimate the percentage of asthma cases in the United States that can be attributed to gas stove pollution — but its findings build on robust scientific literature that has been around for decades connecting gas stoves to unhealthy air quality in homes.

These findings and others led Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, to suggest in an interview with Bloomberg that a gas stove ban could be on the table if the appliances could not be made safe. These comments kicked off a media firestorm — and the fossil fuel industry and its allies wasted no time jumping into the fray to spread misinformation and regulatory confusion.

Waves of misleading rhetoric are now circling the internet — especially from conservative politicians. So let’s clear some things up. First, no one is going to rip out your gas stove. That option was never on the table.

Even after the commission Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric later clarified that there was no intention to pursue a ban, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tweeted the right wing’s newest slogan, “Guns. God. Gas stoves.” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., went as far as to make a veiled threat to cut the commission’s funding for even considering gas stove regulations.

But decades of research connecting gas stoves to unhealthy air quality in homes and respiratory problems such as asthma are damning. Gas stoves are a health hazard, and regulators at the commission are right to be taking a closer look at the risks.

These attacks on a regulatory body for following the science and exploring the connection between gas stoves and asthma are dangerous. Research on gas stoves and unhealthy air quality in homes is extensive. Regulatory scrutiny on gas stoves is actually long overdue.

As far back as 1986, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to investigate the links between gas stoves, indoor air pollution and asthma based on mounting evidence of health harms. In the years since, the evidence has only grown. Most recently, a groundbreaking study on stoves in California found that they are leaking alarming levels of benzene, a chemical linked to cancer, directly into homes, and in homes with the leakiest stoves, benzene levels can be on par with living with a smoker.

The failure to protect communities from unhealthy air quality in homes has been especially deadly for low-income communities and communities of color, which are less likely to have access to medical care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black Americans are more than twice as likely to die from asthma as white Americans.

To reduce health harms, policymakers at the state and federal levels should focus on ensuring homes are safe by expanding access to clean electric alternatives, in both new construction and existing homes.

Here in California, the California Energy Commission can take an important step to reduce exposure to dangerous gas in newly built homes by phasing out gas connections through our state building code. Based on what we know now, it is unconscionable to allow the burning of gas in new homes.

For existing homes, starting later this year, low- to moderate-income Californians will be able to receive up to $840 for upgrading to an electric stove through the Inflation Reduction Act. To help make the switch, households will also be able to access up to $4,000 in savings for a new electrical panel and up to $2,500 in savings for electrical rewiring.

Federal subsidies are a good start, but they are insufficient given the scale of the need. That’s why it’s so essential that they are paired with state incentives. Last year, California committed $1.4 billion in multi-year funding for programs to support households in transitioning away from gas appliances, targeted to low-income households. But in the state budget released earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed scaling back this funding, despite the urgent need.

All children should grow up in homes with healthy air quality — it’s that simple. For the sake of our children’s health, the climate and environmental justice, regulators must address their decades-long blind spot for health impacts from gas stoves and take the urgently needed steps to move California and the nation toward a healthier, all-electric future for homes.

Robert M. Gould is president of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.