A gas stove ban could help climate and health problems. But it won’t be immediate.

When the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced in mid-December that it would consider its first health regulations on gas stoves, it was the start of a very long journey for any restrictions – which would be considered. public comments, including from the gas industry, in determining the approach. The debate broke out this week, when Bloomberg reported that the agency was considering a ban.

The agency can choose one of many routes: new performance standards for some hoods to ensure they are filtering out emissions, the requirement that stoves are sold with ducted hoods for external ventilation, or, the most drastic, the ban on importing and manufacturing. “Any option is on the table,” the commission’s head, Richard Trumka Jr., told Bloomberg.

One option is not at the table forcing people to change the stove there. Commission regulations only apply to new products. But the announcement triggered an directly backlash. Americans have a long-standing love affair with gas stoves — which Sen. Joe Manchin tweeted Tuesday, “I can tell you the last thing that will leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.”

We are still a long way from the end of the gas stove, which is a feature of 40 million American households, or about 38 percent. If you still like gas – do you buy into the smart marketing of the gas industry, just think it cooks better than induction, or unable to substitute for induction – no one is going to force you to give up. But in addition to the case for a climate becoming less dependent on gas, there are concerns about the potential health risks of gas as a source of indoor air pollution. This worrying science is the main reason the CPSC is looking at these machines.

Gas stoves are a source of indoor pollution and a cause of childhood asthma

When the stove or oven clicks on, it starts to spill out pure natural gas (which is really just methane, the world’s most problematic greenhouse gas). Once the stove is on, other pollutants accumulate in the kitchen, including carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. The biggest concern is nitrogen dioxide, which causes cardiovascular problems and respiratory diseases; can make people, especially children, more likely to develop asthma. Pollutants can cause inflammation of the airways, coughing and wheezing, increased asthma attacks in everyone, and at dangerous levels (more than 200 parts per billion) the EPA warns everyone to limit their exposure. At these levels, children, the elderly, and people with lung disease should avoid any exposure.

Nitrogen oxides are a by-product of methane combustion, so gas stoves or ovens work perfectly. as expected when producing this pollutant. Outside, the EPA will consider the levels of NO2 produced by illegal stoves. But inside, there are no rules.

And decades of research have found that nitrogen dioxide levels are high when gas stoves and ovens are used. Since the 1980s, the CPSC has been aware of the health problems associated with gas stoves, and so has the EPA. Indoor air quality scientists, like Shelly Miller, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, say communities have known about the risks since at least the 1990s. “Cooking,” he says, “is the No. 1 way you pollute your home. It causes respiratory and cardiovascular health problems; it can exacerbate flu and asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in children.”

Growing evidence and public pressure led the American Medical Association to adopt a resolution this fall that recognized “the association between the use of gas stoves, indoor nitrogen dioxide levels and asthma.” A report published in December International Journal of Environmental and Public Health Research it is estimated that almost 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the US are caused by using gas stoves, similar to the rate caused by cigarette smoke. This is a rate that “could theoretically be prevented if the use of gas stoves did not exist,” the report noted.

The American Gas Association has pushed back hard against this research, showing in 2013 Lancet Respiratory Medicine study of 500,000 children in 47 countries that “found no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a fuel for cooking and asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.” (The 2013 study relied on a self-reported questionnaire, and the co-authors later told E&E News that other research linked asthma to gas cooking.)

“Attempting to generate consumer fear with baseless accusations to justify natural gas bans is a misguided agenda that will not improve the environment or consumer health and will expose vulnerable populations to significant costs,” the trade group said in a statement.

The industry points to ventilation as a solution to the pollution of gas stoves, and says that all cooking, even on electric stoves or modern induction equivalents, produces particulate matter that must be ventilated.

A study on asthma prevalence found ventilation reduced the risk but did not eliminate it – and gas stoves should not be vented outside, the gold standard for reducing NO2 emissions. This system is more commonly found in restaurant kitchens, which have stricter health and safety controls than in people’s homes. Gas stoves do not need to be sold with hoods, and many homes do not have fans.

If you have a gas stove, it is important to increase the ventilation: Turn on the hood some if you have it (which many people have attached to the bottom of the microwave is less ideal than the ducted hood because it is not vented outside). If not, using fans, air filters, and opening windows can help some. Some consumers may choose to buy plug-in induction hot plates, or they may look for smaller electrification improvements like electric kettles and toaster ovens to minimize stove and oven use.

But the gas industry is committed to defending its products at all costs. In an email from 2021, one of the executives, Sue Kristjansson, who is now the president of Berkshire Gas, said that it is important not to criticize the stove: “If we wait to promote natural gas stoves until we have scientific data. that they do not cause air quality problems that will be done.

The fate of gas stoves may not be determined by science, but by the pushback of the gas industry

The natural gas industry has a strong incentive to ensure that there is no CPSC regulation. Not because cooking alone is a particularly large profit margin for the industry; The real profit center is a gas furnace and water heater, which carries out regulations to release outside, contributing less to bad indoor air quality and more to outdoor pollution. However, he wants to ensure that Americans continue to have an emotional attachment to the stove, which keeps them hooked on gas.

The CPSC sees stoves as a health issue, but cities and states have also been working to reduce their use from another angle: climate change. Buildings are responsible for about 13 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions, and most of that comes from burning gas used to power water heaters, heating, and cooking. Climate activists have launched a nationwide campaign trying to rid buildings of gas, although all city- and state-wide initiatives are now only looking to ensure new ones. construction using electricity, instead of the gargantuan task of remodeling existing buildings.

The gas industry has appeared in each of these fights, denying the science behind gas stoves and launching elaborate PR campaigns to prevent activists from gaining ground. The gas industry has hired social media influencers to extoll the virtues of gas cooking in key battlegrounds, and hired a firm where an employee posed as a concerned neighbor on Nextdoor to start a local protest over electrification.

It will be a long road to regulation at the federal level. If you live in California or New York, you can see some city- or statewide action for the first time, they are electrifying new buildings and setting standards for the sale of gas stoves. In the meantime, homeowners and building operators can choose to take advantage of the newly available federal tax credits and rebates for home electrification – or not. The Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies for induction ranges, all aimed at improving home efficiency and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

CPSC, already walk some more from Trumka’s initial statements, it is likely to settle on a compromise approach. A report from the New York University Integrity Policy this spring details several options, including requiring that stoves be sold with hoods, establishing performance standards for hoods, or equipping gas stoves with sensors that alert users to the concentration of pollution.

“No one is going to walk into the kitchen tomorrow morning and find a hole where the gas range used to be,” said NYU report author Jack Lienke. “The bottom line is that Congress created the CPSC to ensure that consumer products — including home appliances — are reasonably safe. A growing body of evidence shows that gas stoves are not. If the Commission ignores that fact, it’s not doing its job.