Gas stove health concerns were subject to government scrutiny in the 1980s

Forty years ago, the federal government appeared to be on the verge of regulating gas stoves. Everything is on the table, from an outright ban to modifying the Clean Air Act to address indoor air pollution. Congress held indoor air quality hearings in 1983, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both investigated the effects of gas appliances.

Backed into a corner, the industry that profits from selling natural gas to consumers for heating and cooking began to act. That submitted comments to the agency disputing the science. It is funding its own studies and hiring consultants to assess the threat it will face from further regulation.

To prove that voluntary action is effective and does not require regulation, utilities produce their own literature for consumers, such as the Northern State Electric Company’s warning that “Homes Need Fresh Air During the Heating Season.” And the media reports nervously, like the conclusion of Consumer Reports in 1984 that “the current evidence shows that the emissions of some gases are risky” and “may make you choose the electric one.”

Research on the health effects of gas stoves is “provocative, not conclusive,” concluded a 1984 Energy Bar Association report compiled by gas industry consultants.

In the end, the US did not pass the new regulations. However, natural gas is becoming more embedded in American homes and lives, by 2020 it will fuel 70 million homes. At the same time, scientists continue to warn that the gas can produce various emissions and pollutants: nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, and particulate matter, among others. Methane from the gas is a contributor to climate change.

Today, the US risks repeating history, and natural gas utilities find themselves in the same position they were in forty years ago. We have dozens of studies and a better number of exposures and risks than ever before, but the industry, depending on the sale of fuel to tens of millions of homes, is creating an old playbook used by any industry looking to defend public health. .

The gas industry is taking a page from cigarettes to refute the science of gas stoves

Even in the early 1900s, the natural gas industry knew there was a problem with gas stoves. At the time, people without gas stoves generally used coal or wood, but new competition was on the horizon from electric stoves. Both coal and wood are known to cause health problems, but when gas companies later came up with clean alternatives to these fuels, the industry already knew they weren’t clean.

At the second annual meeting of the American Natural Gas Association in 1907, gas representatives discussed how to approach the problem of ventilation around stoves. “I believe that the association will be recorded on that point: no gas of any kind should enter the heating stove without a chimney connection,” which releases the air outside, according to the published minutes of the meeting.

One of the participants noted, “This way of burning gas should be blamed only because we get direct gas and there is a danger to life if we get direct gas in your room, to say nothing of all the by-products.” The most obvious danger at the time was carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Gas is growing regardless of this problem. Over the next few decades, electric and gas stoves went to war with marketing campaigns – Ronald Reagan before the president appeared in a marketing campaign for General Electric’s all-electric household in 1958, while in 1964, the Pennsylvania People’s Natural Gas Company recruited movie stars. Marlene Dietrich. He claims in his ad, “Every recipe I give has something to do with cooking with gas. If forced, I can cook on an electric stove but I don’t like unions.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, the science has become much more. One of the seminal reports of the EPA-appointed Committee on Indoor Pollutants published in 1981 showed, “the association between cooking gas and impaired lung function in children.” While many questions remain unanswered, the NAS is convinced by the evidence that gas appliances pose “a sufficient threat to the health of the general public to justify remedial action.”

The gas industry has latched onto this small uncertainty to the detriment of the larger body of research. The American Gas Association still cites the lack of action by federal agencies from the 1980s and 1990s as an argument for the stove.

However, in 1986, the EPA sent a report back to the CPSC. The executive summary said that gases from cooking or heating “are not a major risk factor compared to factors such as cigarette smoke,” but still noted the amount of research needed to know more: “Unfortunately the majority of epidemiological studies do not include information about N02, and in among those with real measurements, the number of houses and the characterization of concentrations are very limited,” the report said. “This suggests that better quantification of exposure is a major need in future studies.”

The EPA also raised the issue of nitrogen dioxide to the CPSC to determine the level of emissions coming from the device, asking for “further efforts … emissions.”

None of that happened.

The EPA published emissions standards for wood stoves and fireplaces in 1985, but it never took gas into account. The prospect of further EPA action disappeared from the public debate. The agency seems to be backing away from the issue. Tobacco became a bigger priority, and the EPA and Housing and Urban Development started voluntary initiatives for healthier homes.

There have been marginal improvements in stove and oven technology in the following years. The biggest change was the elimination of the pilot light, a flame that always burns gas but is also dangerous if it goes out. This helps with some serious safety issues with gas appliances, such as reducing the possibility of an explosion, but does not address air quality issues when the stove is on or off. Building codes around the country also began mandating life-saving carbon monoxide detectors.

One of the main gas industry technologies that could improve stove safety was developed at the same time, in the 1980s. It is an infrared burning device that uses less gas and reduces the emission of nitrogen dioxide, one of the most dangerous pollutants that comes from gas and causes asthma. According to an NPR report, the idea was scrapped due to lack of demand; it will even remove the beautiful blue flame that made the stove so popular.

Dejà vu gas stove debate

As the debate has resurfaced, gas trade groups have echoed the same line they used in the 1980s. This time, in addition to drawing attention to uncertainty, the industry directly contradicted the scientific consensus.

Some of the gas stove defenders are the same consultants who defend the tobacco and chemical industries in health litigation.

A hearing in November in Portland-area Multnomah County in Oregon on gas stoves as a pollution hazard offers a glimpse of that strategy. Doctors and attorneys general testify against gas appliances because of the NO2 they emit. The gas appliance also has its defenders, including Julie Goodman, an epidemiologist who works for the consulting firm Gradient who says that “the long-term average NO2 concentration in a gas cooking house is not a health problem. Importantly, it is well established that ventilation reduces cooking emissions , regardless of the energy source used.

Goodman’s company has been hired by the American Gas Association to dispute its research on gas stoves, according to a letter to the American Medical Association temporarily published on the association’s website. The letter notes that, since September, AGA has hired Gradient for consulting. In a recent interview in the New York Times, Goodman added, “when considering all the literature, the available epidemiological evidence is insufficient to support causality regarding gas stoves and their adverse health effects.”

A similar pattern has emerged in the gas industry’s pushback on gas stoves. The AGA’s response emphasized that there is no conclusive evidence that gas cooking causes harm, and that there is no clear causal link between asthma and pollution from stoves. After all, it is not the only source of nitrogen dioxide or other pollutants that we are exposed to.

But for all the talk of uncertainty about the risks from gas appliances and gas stoves in 70 million American homes, there are plenty of epidemiologists, pediatricians, and other scientists who are convinced. Gas produces pollutants, and without ventilation can be dangerous to health. Although the gas is vented, the emissions do not disappear; it only contributes to outdoor smog rather than poor indoor air quality.

Republicans say that the news of this new gas stove is a front or a distraction by the Biden administration to take away people’s liberties (to repeat, neither Biden nor the CPSC banned these stoves). Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted on Friday, “Maybe if the Biden Administration wasn’t worried about banning your gas stove, they would have seen this Chinese spy balloon coming.” In a recent letter to the CPSC, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) called gas stoves a “hidden danger” based on limited research. And right-wing forums are full of conspiracies, including the theory, “Gas Stove Ban is to keep Biden’s Mishandling of Classified Documents out of the news.”

None of that is true. The pollution concern is almost the same as the gas stove itself. There is less debate about gas stoves than the natural gas industry and its allies.