Updated September 28, 2024 at 11:47 AM ET
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Sept. 28, 2024 update: California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed this legislation, saying, “While I appreciate the author's intent to provide consumers with information about the products they purchase, I am concerned that this bill codifies highly prescriptive labeling content that could only be changed by a future statutory amendment.”
The next time you shop for a cooking stove, the gas versions might show a health warning label similar to those on tobacco products.
Because a stove's blue flame releases air pollution into your kitchen, California lawmakers have passed a bill that would require such warning labels on gas stoves for sale in stores and online. Gov. Gavin Newsom has until the end of September to sign the bill into law.
The legislation comes after a series of lawsuits was filed against stove manufacturers, claiming they should have warned customers about potential health risks. Environmental activists are encouraging people to switch to electric stoves, part of a broader campaign to cut climate pollution from buildings. Now there's an effort to put health warning labels on stoves nationwide.
A chef replaces her gas stove
About 38% of U.S. homes cook with natural gas, and utilities have preserved that market share with tobacco-style tactics to avoid regulations on gas stoves. Part of that is a decades-old "cooking with gas" campaign that has helped gas stoves remain popular with cooks, including famous ones.
"I will say, historically, I've been really a snob about that," says Samin Nosrat, who wrote the 2017 award-winning cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. She learned to cook with gas. "I just never accepted an alternative in my imagination."
But a few years back, she bought a house with a gas stove, and her carbon monoxide alarm kept going off when she cooked. At first, she assumed the alarm was broken and installed a new one. Finally she called the gas company. A utility worker said that levels of the poisonous gas were "off the charts high" and that she should get checked for carbon monoxide poisoning.
Nosrat was fine but says, "I really didn't feel safe. I just always had this feeling of like, 'Is my oven going to kill me?'"
For her to switch from a gas to electric range could have required expensive electrical upgrades and construction that would inconvenience her neighbors. So Nosrat opted for a new style of electric induction stove with a battery that doesn't need a special outlet.
As part of her installation, the California company Copper measured pollutants in Nosrat's home before and after. It found that both nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide levels dropped dramatically.
While Nosrat still uses a gas stove in her studio for work, she says it's a relief to know her home range is no longer sending fossil fuel pollutants into her living space. And she found another benefit to using an induction stove with a smooth cooktop: "Cleaning it rules — like, you just spray it down and wipe it off."
A California law to warn stove buyers
Another Californian has been learning about indoor air pollution from gas stoves, and as a state lawmaker, she sponsored legislation to warn other stove buyers.
California Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democrat from Santa Cruz, says she knew to turn on the vent hood when using the cooktop, but she hadn't thought about her gas oven. "So if I've got a lasagna in the oven, I have never put the vent on, because you're not seeing the smoke and everything," Pellerin told NPR. "So I was emitting horrible gases into my home."
Medical experts say nitrogen dioxide is the biggest concern. It's a reddish-brown gas and is a key element of smog outdoors. It can irritate airways and may contribute to the development of asthma, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The American Public Health Association has labeled gas cooking stoves "a public health concern," and the American Medical Association warns that cooking with gas increases the risk of childhood asthma.
Gas stoves can also leak methane, even when they're off, and stoves emit benzene, which is linked to cancer. While stove manufacturers have developed cleaner and more efficient burners, they aren't widely available to consumers.
If Pellerin's legislation becomes law, it will require a label on gas stoves for sale in stores and online that says, "Gas stoves can release nitrogen dioxide, benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and other harmful pollutants into the air, which can be toxic to people and pets." The label would also mention associated risks for breathing problems, suggest using a vent hood and say, "Young children, people with asthma, and people with heart or lung disease are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of combustion pollutants."
"I think this is just important for us to have transparency and inform consumers so they can make the decision that's right for their family," Pellerin says.
Similar bills were introduced in Illinois and New York, but unlike California's version, lawmakers did not pass them out of the legislature.
The campaign for warning labels is part of a larger climate effort to get consumers to switch to electric appliances that don't burn fossil fuels. Commercial and residential buildings account for about 13% of heat-trapping emissions, mainly from the use of gas appliances.
The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) opposed California's health warning legislation and suggested a different label that does not focus on fossil fuel combustion pollution. The trade group echoes gas industry arguments that smoke and fumes from cooking food are a bigger problem than pollution from burning gas and that two separate issues are being conflated.
"If we want to talk about people's health and indoor air quality, then let's talk about that. If we want to talk about fossil fuel versus electrification, then we need to talk about that," says Kevin Messner, AHAM's executive vice president and chief policy officer.
Messner says all pollution from stoves — electric or gas — requires proper ventilation to prevent pollution from accumulating in homes. With warning labels only on gas stoves, Messner argues that this sends the wrong message.
"So if you go to, let's say, a retailer and you see a gas cooking product with a warning or information that says you should use ventilation. Then right next to it, you have an electric appliance or an induction [stove] that does not have that warning — this is common sense that you're going to think, 'I don't need to use ventilation for the electric appliance,'" Messner says.
AHAM says it's disappointed California lawmakers passed the health warning label only for gas stoves. But that has energized activists, who hope they can get similar labels on gas stoves for sale nationwide.
A national campaign for gas stove health warnings
The use of gas stoves has become a flash point in the culture wars. One of the groups pushing for health warning labels has turned to humor to spread its message. Gas Leaks Project released a parody trailer this year for a reality show it calls Hot & Toxic. The premise is an "unsuspecting homeowner" who loves her new gas stove but later learns it comes with some of "the hottest, most toxic housemates imaginable."
Each character represents a pollutant created from burning gas, including carbon monoxide, or “C.MO,” who echoes a line that reality show fans will recognize, but with a twist. "I did not come here to make friends," she says. "I came here to cause chest pain, nausea and vomiting."
A campaign associated with the parody encourages people to sign a petition to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) telling it to put warning labels on gas stoves nationwide.
The CPSC was at the center of a 2023 culture war campaign led by conservatives, who falsely claimed the Biden administration wanted to take away Americans' gas stoves. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, wrote on social media, "I'll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands."
The outrage was prompted by a story in which CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. suggested that the CPSC might consider stricter regulations on new gas stoves in response to health concerns.
Trumka and the CPSC did not respond to NPR's requests for interviews. Even before that kerfuffle, the CPSC had launched a task force about gas stoves and indoor air quality. It included industry, environmental and consumer groups.
"We met at least monthly for a year and a half," says AHAM's Messner, adding that participants were leaning toward regulating cooking fumes instead of fossil fuel combustion pollution. "The enthusiasm for having CPSC's task force trailed off by some who didn't see it going in the direction where they wanted it to go, politically."
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group disputes that conclusion and says the staff member directing the group was reassigned. Still, U.S. PIRG has redirected its campaign and launched a new effort to get health warning labels on gas stoves sold in Washington, D.C., by suing one of the biggest stove manufacturers.
Suing gas stove companies
U.S. PIRG filed a lawsuit in May against the Chinese company Haier, which owns GE Appliances. U.S. PIRG says the manufacturer violates the District of Columbia's consumer protection law, which "prohibits a wide variety of deceptive and unconscionable business practices."
"We're saying that it's a deceptive practice for GE Appliances to sell gas stoves in the District without warning consumers about the well-documented health risks associated with cooking with gas," says Abe Scarr, U.S. PIRG's energy and utilities program director.
The group isn't asking for money, aside from paying U.S. PIRG's attorney fees and costs. Instead it wants the court to require GE Appliances to put health warning labels on gas stoves sold in the District.
A spokesperson for GE Appliances said the company won't comment on the litigation but said: "All our ranges and cooktops meet or exceed applicable safety standards."
Other gas stove manufacturers face potential class action lawsuits in California and Wisconsin that claim companies should disclose the risk of pollutants to consumers. Attorneys in Massachusetts have filed a similar case against the local gas utility Eversource.
Scarr says the legal cases are needed because stove buyers aren't getting the message that pollution from gas stoves can lead to health problems. His group surveyed 62 Lowe's, Home Depot and Best Buy locations in 11 states. Secret shoppers were dispatched to ask about health concerns.
U.S. PIRG found that most salespeople "flatly denied or expressed ignorance about the health risks of gas stoves" and that 15% of them "recommended gas stoves over electric ranges or induction cooktops, even when the secret shopper voiced concerns about pollution."
Lowe's and Best Buy did not respond to NPR's interview requests. A Home Depot spokesperson said, "Most customers choose a gas, electric or induction range based on which fuel their home is equipped for" and also said that the retailer sells range hoods and that a stove's instruction manual "speaks to the importance of ventilation."
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