🎉 WE WON! Bay Area is First in Nation to Pass Zero-NOx Standard! 🎉

By Melissa Yu

On March 15th, Bay Area air regulators voted to approve the nation's first zero-NOx standard for furnaces and water heaters, which will effectively phase out the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters, beginning later this decade. The standard will apply when a consumer would already be replacing a burned-out appliance — it would not require anyone to remove working appliances. This is a historic moment for clean air in the Bay and beyond.

The new standard will have major implications for climate, regional air quality, and public health, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities living on the frontlines of the Bay Area’s air quality crisis. It is expected to prevent 15,000 asthma symptom incidents and avoid up to 85 premature deaths every year. This new standard will save lives.

Sierra Club turned out in force to the Air District board meeting, and the vote passed in the afternoon with a resounding yes from both community members and the board, with 140 speakers showing up in support of the new standards and only 15 opposed. Board members passed the amendments with a final vote count of 20 yes votes, ZERO no votes, 1 abstain, and 3 absent.

But why is this so important?

Gas appliances are an underappreciated driver of unhealthy air quality in the Bay Area. 

• Gas appliances in homes and buildings in the Bay Area are responsible for more nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution than the region's passenger cars.
• Statewide, homes and buildings in California generate four times more NOx pollution than California’s gas power plants and nearly two-thirds as much NOx as California’s 16 million passenger cars.
• The Air District has passed a zero-NOx standard as part of its strategy for coming into compliance with federal air quality standards that protect health. 
• The Bay Area is failing to meet federal limits for safe levels of ozone pollution, which puts residents health at risk.

Phasing out the sale of gas appliances will deliver enormous health benefits. 

• These rules are expected to help prevent 15,000 asthma symptom incidents and avoid up to 85 premature deaths every year, according to the Air District.
• According to research from UCLA, replacing all residential gas appliances in California with clean electric alternatives would prevent 354 premature deaths, 596 acute cases of bronchitis, and 304 cases of chronic bronchitis annually through outdoor air quality improvements in PM2.5 pollution. 
• The implementation of these zero-emissions standards by air regulators in the Bay Area will cut 95 percent of NOx emissions by 2046. 

Communities of color and low-income communities are most impacted by gas appliance pollution and unhealthy air quality. Moving to electric heat pumps can help. 

• People of color in the U.S. are exposed to nearly twice as much residential gas appliance pollution as White communities.
• NOx, PM2.5, and ozone concentrations vary block-by-block, with a recent study in the Bay Area finding that communities of color were exposed to 55 percent more NO2 than mostly white neighborhoods.
• 99 percent of disadvantaged communities in California live in an ozone non-attainment area. Transitioning homes to electric heat pumps will tackle a key source of NOx pollution, improving air quality, and supporting the state in meeting federal air quality standards that protect health.

Transitioning to all-electric buildings will require the talents and skills of workers from across the economy.

• A statewide transition to all-electric buildings is going to require the talents and skills of workers from across the economy. A study from UCLA Luskin Center on Innovation found that electrifying all of California’s existing and new buildings by 2045 would create over 100,000 full-time equivalent jobs in various sectors of the economy. 
• Skilled installation and maintenance is necessary to realize the full efficiency potential of zero-emissions technology and to maximize the bill savings from fuel switching.
• Strong labor standards are imperative to making the switch to a just transition as stated in this letter by the North Bay Building Trades. 

As California warms with climate change, access to cooling is a public health necessity. The Air District’s appliance standard will help address this gap in climate resilience. 

• Heat pumps are highly efficient electric appliances that pull double duty, cooling and heating homes while using a fraction of the energy of other appliances. They are the ticket to adding cooling to millions of California homes without overloading the electricity grid.
• In the historically temperate San Francisco metropolitan area, only 47 percent of homes have cooling — a major health threat as temperatures in the region rise with climate change. This zero-NOx appliance standard will drive heat pump adoption, helping to address this critical gap in climate resilience. 

In addition to tackling a major source of air pollution, this appliance standard will deliver key climate co-benefits. 

• Burning fossil fuels in homes for heating is responsible for roughly 11 percent of California’s statewide climate emissions. The state cannot meet its climate targets without eliminating this pollution. 
• Moving to electric appliances like heat pumps – and powering these appliances with renewable energy – is the ticket to zeroing out climate emissions from heating homes entirely. 
• According to the Air District, electrifying Bay Area appliances could reduce climate-warming emissions from appliances 73 percent by 2046 from a 2019 baseline.

In recap, these new amendments will be instrumental for both the climate and our communities. We look forward to supporting the Air District staff and implementation working group members to ensure that this standard is implemented with strong equity guardrails to protect low-income communities. Now, the work can really begin.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a moment to celebrate this historic victory and all the hard work that got us here. This momentous achievement for health and climate is owed to the hundreds of community members who sent letters to the Air District board and testified at yesterday's hearing. Your work is what makes it all possible. And, of course, we must thank our Air District Board members for this truly transformative and precedent-setting vote. 

Today, we celebrate a future for the Bay Area that just got a little bit brighter and a whole lot healthier.

For the most updated ways to get involved, go to bayareacleanair.com.

Supporters gather at SPUR Headquarters in San Francisco in the afternoon after the Air District meeting to celebrate the victory.