(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Regulators in the Democrat-run San Francisco Bay Area have voted to prohibit the sale of furnaces and water heaters powered by natural gas, arguing that the ban would reduce air pollution.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District thus approved rules to gradually end the sale and installation of natural gas-powered furnaces and heaters over eight years, starting in 2027.
“The vote was the latest step taken by left-wing jurisdictions against natural gas — a convenient and relatively clean-burning source of fuel,” Breitbart News commented in a report.
According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the decision presents “one of the most ambitious plans” in the United States to replace gas appliances with electricity-powered ones.
Its report describes furnaces and water heaters on natural gas as “some of the worst home-appliance” polluters.
The new rules of the San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District are supposed to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides or NOx.
The pollutants in question cause acid rain and smog and pose risks for people with asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
The regulation will still allow users of natural gas-powered home appliances to repair them if they break. However, replacing them with new ones will be prohibited.
The newly adopted rules also make it mandatory for new construction to have zero-NOx furnaces and water heaters – meaning such appliances would have to be electric.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s vote came as part of implementing a 2020 decision by the San Francisco legislature, the city Board of Supervisors, which prohibited the installation of natural gas lines in new buildings.
The new San Francisco policy doesn’t affect gas stoves, but it comes weeks after the Biden administration stirred controversy with a proposal to ban the sale of new gas stoves.
Many Democrats oppose using natural gas because it is one of the fossil fuels, and its extraction often requires hydraulic fracking, Breitbart points out.
The leftist opposition to natural gas has persisted even though it has “allowed the US to produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions while growing its economy,” the report adds.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in California, the “Green New Deal” initiated by the Democrat Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, seeks to shut down natural gas power plants gradually. That is despite the risk of causing electricity shortages.
On Wednesday, Garcetti was confirmed as the new US ambassador to India.
What is your reaction to this decision by government regulators in the Democrat-run San Francisco Bay Area? Share your thoughts by emailing [email protected]. Thank you.
HERE IT COMES: Regulators in the San Francisco Bay Area voted to eliminate natural gas-powered furnaces and water heaters over 8 years starting in 2027. https://t.co/DNGsugZn0g
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 16, 2023
