Congress, the media, and the public have given significant attention to remarks this week by a commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission ("CPSC") indicating that the agency would be considering a federal ban on gas stoves due to their health effects. The suggestion of a ban on gas stoves has drawn comments from bipartisan policymakers in both chambers, and even the White House has weighed in against the prospect of a potential ban.
The CPSC is unlikely to ban gas stoves in the near future, although it has the authority to ban unreasonably dangerous products that cannot be made safe, and has done so with toxic substances in children's products and other product categories in the past. A CPSC rulemaking on mandatory safety standards for gas stoves, however, is a possibility, and that process may drive the establishment of voluntary industry standards by a standards-setting body. Additionally, other federal and state regulators have recently sharpened their focus on indoor air quality and gas-powered appliances, for both health and environmental reasons. The Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), for instance, is undertaking several activities related to indoor air quality. And the California Air Resources Board ("CARB") recently adopted a plan that would effectively prohibit the sale of gas-powered space and water heaters in California by 2030.
Particularly with regard to federal regulatory activity on gas stoves and other gas-powered appliances, potentially affected parties will have ample opportunities to help shape the outcome of any mandatory or voluntary product standards put in place or accepted by the CPSC, and to engage with other regulators. This alert provides an overview of recent and emerging legislative and regulatory activity related to indoor air pollution, focusing particularly on activity by the CPSC and EPA. Companies—both those with interests in gas stoves and those concerned with indoor air quality issues more broadly—should carefully follow indoor air quality developments, including in their interactions with regulators, given the increased focus on this area.
Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Consumer Product Safety Act ("CPSA") tasks the CPSC with regulating the safety of consumer products, which the statute broadly defines as products sold or used by consumers. The CPSA exempts from CPSC jurisdiction most items subject to regulation by another federal agency, including food, drugs, tobacco, pesticides, motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment, and firearms.The CPSC has five commissioners and is bipartisan by statute, although one seat is currently vacant.
The CPSC has the power to promulgate product safety standards that are "reasonably necessary to eliminate or reduce an unreasonable risk of injury associated with such product." The public, including industry, may offer written comments in a CPSC rulemaking on product safety standards, and the CPSC must "give interested persons an opportunity for the oral presentation of data, views, or arguments." Additionally, if the agency receives a submission of a voluntary safety standard and determines that the standard is "likely to result in the elimination or adequate reduction of the risk of injury" and that "it is likely that there will be substantial compliance with such standard," it must terminate the rulemaking and rely on the voluntary standard.
The CPSC faces a relatively high bar to implementing a mandatory safety standard, including the requirement that it make a finding that "the rule imposes the least burdensome requirement which prevents or adequately reduces the risk of injury for which the rule is being promulgated." There is an even higher bar for banning a product, which requires a finding that there is "no feasible consumer product safety standard [that] would adequately protect the public from the unreasonable risk of injury associated with such product." Both mandatory standards and a ban could be challenged in federal court, and most courts considering CPSC mandatory standards or bans have subjected the agency's required findings to stringent scrutiny.
Although Commissioner Trumka's recent remarks gained attention due to his reference to a potential ban on gas stoves, the adoption of voluntary or mandatory standards is a more likely outcome. There is a clear CPSC interest in the topic. The agency's fiscal year 2023 operating plan includes as a priority a focus on "chronic hazards, including hazards associated with ...万博体育app手机登录gas stoves" and sets a target date of March 1, 2023, for agency staff to provide a plan to the commissioners for seeking public input on the topic. In considering the operating plan, the Commission unanimously accepted, as part of a larger manager's amendment, Commissioner Boyle's addition of "chronic hazards" to the agency's priorities. During that meeting, Commissioner Trumka offered an amendment to begin rulemaking on standards for gas stoves, but he withdrew that amendment due to lack of support. The instruction to begin seeking public input on gas stoves was a fallback, which the Commission adopted unanimously.
The agency is also facing congressional pressure to begin promulgating safety standards for gas stoves. In December, on the same day that a study was published indicating that gas stoves may be a major cause of childhood asthma, a group of House and Senate Democrats wrote the CPSC to urge the agency to begin a rulemaking to address health risks from gas stoves. The letter included a focus on the impacts of indoor air quality on vulnerable populations, which is consistent with the priority listed in the CPSC fiscal year 2023 operating plan to "enhance agency data collection and analysis of product safety incidents, injuries, and deaths to identify vulnerable populations" and to "allocate safety work to better address any existing safety disparities among such identified vulnerable populations."
Environmental Protection Agency
The EPA has also shown a growing interest in indoor air quality, including related to emissions from gas-powered appliances. The EPA has expansive statutory authority to research, but not regulate, indoor air quality issues under the Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality Research Act of 1986. Despite lacking authority to regulate in this area, the EPA's research can be authoritative and lead to regulatory and legislative activity and industry scrutiny. For example, the EPA's 1993 report on the risks of secondhand smoke exposure influenced public understanding of the dangers of secondhand smoke and the subsequent proliferation of smoke-free laws. A recently published report by the National Academies of Sciences, sponsored in part by the EPA, stressed the importance of issues relating to indoor chemicals, and the effect of these chemicals on air quality and human health.
As part of its efforts on indoor air quality, EPA has also become involved with indoor air quality sensor technology. Most notably, the EPA recently published guidance on the benefits and limitations of low-cost air quality monitors. While noting that air quality monitors may be helpful in measuring indoor pollution, the EPA also cautioned consumers that there is limited information as to the accuracy of these monitors and noted that there is "currently no widely accepted air concentration limits for most pollutants indoor." The guidance also reflects increased concerns about indoor air pollution, including from stoves, stating that "[i]n some instances, you may wish to use one or more monitors to compare pollutant levels or environmental factors before, during, and after an activity like cooking." The development of indoor air quality monitors may be significant to providing alternatives to simply banning products, by providing consumers with information they can use to respond to indoor air quality issues. Similarly, enhanced research regarding indoor air pollution may provide greater clarity about pollutant levels of concern indoors.
The EPA also has jurisdiction under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act over air-cleaning devices if device claims include pest or other micro-organism mitigation (e.g., air filters, air purifiers). The agency has significantly increased its focus on these devices due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we can expect a continued concern with indoor air quality issues to result in continued EPA engagement regarding this category of products.
As additional evidence of the agency's interest in these issues, the EPA published a request for information in October 2022, seeking input on "actions, strategies, tools and approaches that support ventilation, filtration and air cleaning improvements, and other actions" to promote indoor air quality, with a focus on reducing disease transmission indoors. The request for information was prompted, in part, by the Biden Administration's Clean Air in Buildings Challenge, which calls on building owners and operators to improve indoor air quality and reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Finally, in exercising its authority to address outdoor air pollution, the EPA may affect indoor appliances and indoor air quality. For example, in August 2022 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, petitioned the EPA to list heating appliances (including indoor appliances such as space heaters, gas stoves, and dryers) as a source category under the Clean Air Act and to issue performance standards.
State and Local Legislation
State and local regulators and legislative bodies have also engaged in activity related to gas-powered appliances.In addition to the California Air Resources Board plan that would effectively prohibit the sale of gas-powered space and water heaters in California by 2030, amendments to the state's building code that strengthened ventilation standards and established requirements for single-family homes to be ready for electric appliances went into effect on January 1. The Los Angeles prohibition on gas appliances in new buildings will be effective this month, and in November 2022, the largest county in Maryland passed a law requiring all new construction to be fully electric by the end of 2026. Numerous other local governments have enacted their own gas bans, although there is currently ongoing litigation regarding whether these gas bans may be preempted under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Additionally, these gas bans have prompted backlash from some state governments. As of June 2022, 20 states have passed legislation prohibiting local communities from enacting gas bans, and legislators in states where such "preemption legislation" failed may try again in the coming year.
Product manufacturers, retailers, and consumers can expect continued state and local legislative activity on gas appliances in 2023. For example, New York's Climate Action Council plan, passed in December, contains recommendations for implementing New York's 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The plan calls for making buildings more energy efficient through a mix of adopting zero-emission building codes and standards and providing incentives to transition to energy efficient appliances. Cities such as Denver and Eugene, Oregon, are also considering bans on natural gas in new residential buildings.
Non-Governmental Organizations
Non-governmental organizations are likely to continue advocating for regulation of gas-fueled appliances and indoor air quality. For example, a 2022 study conducted by the U.S.公众兴趣研究集团教育基金和Sierra俱乐部发现,消费者在各零售商购物可能无法了解与燃气炉和通风需求相关的健康风险,此外,2022年6月,美国医学协会传递了
Opportunities for Companies
Clearly, indoor air quality concerns are not going away, and we expect continued regulatory and policymaking focus on these issues. Companies selling products that may contribute to indoor air quality issues should consider monitoring these developments, participating in rulemaking and legislative processes, and proactively taking steps to evaluate and mitigate any indoor air quality risks (e.g., enhanced ventilation, monitoring), and develop a legal and regulatory strategy. Others may want to consider both the benefits and the risks associated with providing air-cleaning and air-monitoring technologies to consumers, which will continue to be an area of significant regulatory and legislative focus.
If you have any questions concerning the material discussed in this post, please contact the authors.
The establishment responded remarkably 50 years ago. Within the twelve months following the first Earth Day, a Republican President and Democratic Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency and enacted the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts and the corporate community's Ad Council began running its iconic "Crying Indian television commercial" with the tag line "People Start Pollution!人民可以停止它 。
地球日年度庆典已推广到190多个国家和10亿人民,地球日2020计划在全球启动大规模公众示威,呼吁加强政治和企业对环境可持续性和气候行动的承诺。However, open invitations abound for opportunities to participate in digital Earth Day events and Earth Day social media engagement.Against this backdrop, governments and corporations are rightly focused on immediate needs to grapple with public health, safety and economic crises inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as these near term issues eventually begin to subside, a watershed question will be looming – perhaps to be addressed during the virtual Earth Day. Will the corporate and public policy agenda return its focus to the sustainability and climate issues that captured momentum earlier this year through events such as January's World Economic Forum (centered on "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World"), February's Net Zero Announcement by BP (pledging to transform BP's business model and policy advocacy focus to achieve a carbon net zero business by 2050 or sooner) and March's planned, but cancelled due to COVID, CERAWeek gathering of the global energy industry (themed "Waves of Change: Charting the Energy Transition")?
Some considerations as to how individual corporations might address this question include the following:
- Investor Expectations for Corporate Sustainability Focus Remain – On March 29, writing as the pandemic's impact battered financial markets, BlackRock's CEO, Larry Fink, issued his letter to shareholders acknowledging the pressing need for companies to navigate the immediate crisis, but admonishing that "companies and investors with a strong sense of purpose and a long-term approach will be better able to navigate this crisis and its aftermath." He reaffirmed sustainability as BlackRock's new standard of investing and investment stewardship as detailed in his January Letter to CEOs and Letter to Clients. And he predicted, "when we emerge from this crisis, and investors rebalance portfolios, we have an opportunity to accelerate into a more sustainable world."
- COVID-19 Impacts on Corporate Sustainability Reporting – The drastic decline in economic activity due to COVID-19 mitigation will significantly reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for 2020. Projections of annual reductions from 2019 range from 0.3% to 1.2% in an article by the Atlantic Council to 5% or more forecasted by Rob Jackson, a Stanford University professor who chairs The Global Carbon Project. The reductions for specific industry sectors (such as the airline and hospitality industries) or individual corporations are apt to be more dramatic. But it is also clear that without continued investment in decarbonization technologies and business methods this COVID-caused emissions reduction will be short-lived. As companies with Science Based Targets and other published GHG reduction goals prepare sustainability reports for 2020 and set future GHG reduction goals, careful attention to transparent disclosure regarding COVID impacts on their emissions should be expected by investors and other stakeholders that are focused on these disclosures.公司应利用COVID减少意外排放,但不要求信用。
Although the pandemic still commands attention to immediate needs, as next week's Earth Day comes into view, corporations and investors may well begin to turn attention back to prominent themes of climate change and sustainability that were resonating loudly only a few weeks ago before COVID became an all-consuming focus.