In the News

A New York bill could force fossil fuel companies to pay for what lawmakers — and studies — say is their share of the mess they’ve made in the atmosphere. Peter Howard, the economics director at NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity, co-authored a 2022 report that looked at the effect of the Climate Change Superfund Act on gas prices. He said the penalties would not be expected to impact the cost of gasoline at the pump in New York or the price of crude oil because companies would treat these payments as one-time fixed costs. Rachel Rothschild, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Law School who conducted legal research for the bill, said there are currently no federal laws that would prevent New York or another state from passing a Climate Change Superfund Act.

Environmentalists on Thursday called on Governor Kathy Hochul to make the world’s largest oil companies pay for the infrastructure costs of dealing with climate change. The groups estimate that those costs could total $100 billion in New York over the next decade, with more expenses as the world’s climate worsens. An analysis from the think tank Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law was also shown, which made the case that charging Big Oil would not lead to higher consumer prices.

The delays are fueling concern among both outside activists and Washington insiders, who warn that federal agencies face a narrow window to finalize enduring climate actions before the end of the president’s first term. One recent development could accelerate the administration’s pace of progress, even though it largely flew under the radar in Washington. On Dec. 21, when many people were tuning out the news around the holidays, the Senate confirmed Richard “Ricky” Revesz to lead the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which vets hundreds of rules each year.

Recent remarks from a federal consumer safety regulator are escalating a debate among climate advocates, the natural gas industry and lawmakers about whether gas cooking stoves pose health hazards -- even though officials have not proposed any new health standards for the equipment, much less a “ban” on new or existing models. An April 2022 report from the Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) summarizes that “[w]ithin just a few minutes of cooking, … pollutant concentrations can exceed levels” that both EPA and the World Health Organization (WHO) “have deemed unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other serious health conditions.”

The consumer commission has several options it could consider should it choose to dive into stove regulation. A report last year from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity argued that the CPSC could require warning labels on gas stoves, conduct public education campaigns about their dangers or, most directly, issue mandatory rules to reduce the risks.

Gas stoves are a dangerous source of indoor air pollution. The Consumer Product Safety Commission won’t be banning them, but it can make them safer, explains Laura Figueroa.

Researchers at the Institute for Policy Integrity released a report calling for gas stoves to be sold with warning labels and requirements for better ventilation, while pointing to studies concluding that low-income households and people of color were more likely to live in homes with poor ventilation.

A report by the Institute for Policy Integrity says that natural gas stoves produce dangerous levels of air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. These pollutants a stove can emit can exacerbate asthma and are linked to other diseases, like inflammation of organs and cancer, according to the Institute for Policy Integrity report.

"Causal relationships between adverse health effects and [particulate matter] have been found at long-term exposure levels well below [the Environmental Protection Agency's] ambient limits for outdoor air, which indoor concentrations caused by gas stoves likely exceed," the report said. 

Gas stoves, particularly those that are not well ventilated — or for which homeowners do not consistently use ventilation — emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter into the home at levels the Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and that are linked to respiratory illness, including asthma, cardiovascular problems, cancer and other health conditions. That’s according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society. 

The CPSC, already walking back some of Trumka’s initial statements, is likely to settle on a compromise approach. A report from New York University Policy Integrity this spring detailed some of those options, including requiring that stoves be sold with hoods, establishing performance standards for those hoods, or equipping gas stoves with sensors that alert the user of pollution concentrations.

“No one’s going to walk into their kitchen tomorrow morning and find a hole where the gas range used to be,” the NYU report co-author, Jack Lienke, said. “The bottom line is that Congress created the CPSC to ensure that consumer products — including home appliances — are reasonably safe. A growing body of evidence indicates that gas stoves aren’t. If the Commission ignored this reality, it wouldn’t be doing its job.”