Grab your pitchforks

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of being part of a Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD - pronounced “back mid”) board meeting (and posted about it live). It was a long meeting - I had to sign off after being logged on for over three hours. The time I was online was just for a single agenda item, out of over 25 on a crowded docket of other bullet points. Sounds boring, right?

What is BAAQMD anyway, and why should you care?

This conversation was important because the BAAQMD polices air quality around the Bay Area. This means that they have authority to regulate emissions of polluters that make our air unhealthy to breathe. And buildings make the air unhealthy to breathe - they are one of the largest emitters of air pollution.

In fact, when you look at the Bay Area, buildings actually contribute more to air pollution than cars do! Though we often think about getting an EV as one of the most impactful things we can do as good stewards of the earth, buildings play an enormous role. Within buildings, the vast majority of emissions are coming from gas furnaces and gas water heaters.

What were they talking about?

The meeting was a discussion around BAAQMD’s Rules 9-4 and 9-6 around building appliances. These rules were adopted last year, and are intended to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from furnaces and water heaters in the Bay Area.

In simple terms, the new rules will only allow installation of residential-sized water heaters that emit zero NOx as of January 2027, and furnaces that emit zero NOx as of January 2029.

It’s important to note that this is not a “gas ban”. The restriction is on NOx emissions, which are emitted by gas appliances. There is nothing in the rule that forces fuel switching, and theoretically if there was a natural gas appliance that could meet these requirements then it would be allowed. BAAQMD is operating entirely within its jurisdiction and mandate, ensuring “a healthy breathing environment for every Bay Area resident”.

That being said, right now the best zero NOx appliances to heat homes and water are heat pumps, which is why you’re here!

What is climate activism?

I have never participated in a local government meeting like this before, but was invited by Angela Evans who leads a local climate advocacy organization called Menlo Spark. We were originally introduced by volunteers at 350 Silicon Valley, which is another activist group affiliated with the global 350.org organization.

When I first started learning about heat pumps, the local climate activism community helped me get started. One of the earliest things I did was volunteering in a canvassing event, where we went door-to-door sharing information about heat pump water heaters.

I had no idea at the time that there were people passionate enough about water heaters to spend their entire weekend knocking on doors to talk about them. But hundreds of people showed up!

While federal initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act spur decarbonization, much of the hard work comes from grassroots community organization at the local level.

How does democracy work?

The reason I was invited to this meeting was to share my public comments, as an enthusiastic heat pump supporter, but more importantly as a contractor doing the ground game and building the workforce needed for deployment.

At the same time that I was in the BAAQMD board meeting, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez organized a mass public comment in New York to approve the addition of gigawatts in renewable energy production to the grid. Over 4,000 people left public comments during an hours long call.

These public comments are incredibly important. They are democracy in action. They help constituents voice their opinions on rules and projects like these, highlighting how each stakeholder is affected. They are the way to push action forward, but also a way for people who have concerns about new policies to block them.

What should you take away from the meeting?

It was a long meeting, with hours of discussion by the board followed by dozens of public comments. But many of these public comments helped me understand why people would give up their Saturdays to knock on doors talking about water heaters. I’ve compiled some of the comments that stood out the most in an appendix at the bottom of this issue.

All of these comments show how diverse voices play into the discourse. I have always thought about heat pumps as a tool to stop climate change, but when you listen to stakeholders you realize that combating climate change is just one of many benefits.

Only rainbows and butterflies?

The other important thing about the public comment period is that it allows for dissent. Part of the reason that there was such a strong turnout in support of this regulation was because organizers knew that it’s in the interest of the fossil fuel industry to delay regulations like this.

BAAQMD is the first agency to adopt air quality rules like this, and this regulation will serve as a blueprint for the rest of the country. It is already shaping similar regulations in Southern California, at the state level through the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and across the country in Maryland.

Fortunately, the fossil fuel lobby didn’t show up (or if they did, it was after I had to log off, and their voice would have been drowned by the cacophony of voices in support of the measure).

However, there was some valid feedback that came up, which you can also find at the end of this article.

Overall, I found that with the organizers bringing the right stakeholders into the room, there were adequate answers to most concerns that were brought up.

Your input matters

Creating rules and laws have always felt like an abstract concept to me, and this video was probably the closest I ever got to the process. It was great to be a small part of the sausage getting made.

I left the meeting feeling energized about our democratic process. Although the Inflation Reduction Act is a landmark deal with billions of dollars in funding, relatively unheard of rules like this one will be the pressure points that transform the market.

Heat pumps are inevitable, but rules like this help speed up the inevitable.

And people really, deeply care about this topic. I tend to approach heat pumps as an engineer and a scientist. I focus on efficiency and thermodynamics, dollars and cents, the nuts and bolts of how to install a heat pump and build the workforce to install thousands of these systems.

But other smart people are thinking about health, equity, safety and economic welfare. All of these topics are tightly interconnected with the deployment of heat pumps, and there is so much societal good that we can do by making heat pumps ubiquitous.

How can you get involved?

Find local organizers. Organizations like 350 and Sierra Club are national, and have local chapters. The local leaders have a pulse on local government actions, and coordinate with their parent organizations as well as smaller local organizations like Menlo Spark to advocate for the rules that matter the most for local, national, and global priorities.

Become an activist. I recently spoke with Kunal Bhatia, who has been working with his local permitting jurisdictions to allow the installation of a geothermal heat pump at his parents home in Massachusetts. He created a petition and showed up to local government meetings to advocate for the project. Though it has been an arduous, multi-year project, activism like Kunal’s paves the way for future homeowners to more easily retrofit their homes.

Spread the word. I recently read about a $761 million dollar billing system that PG&E, the primary utility in Northern California, is implementing, through Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart’s brilliant Musings from California newsletter. This billing system would be funded through utility bill increases, which would result in higher electricity costs and make our energy transition harder. There is still room to push back against this action by reaching out to the California Public Utilities Commission. Sharing opportunities like this to your community can help steer local policy in the right direction.

Appendix - featured public comments

Multiple doctors from different organizations spoke about how these rules can reduce disease and death, with air pollutants causing strokes, dementia, and Parkinson's.

A homeowner shared his experience switching to an all-electric heating system, saving money on his utility bills.

An advocate shared how local jurisdictions are modifying their building ordinances to accommodate the transition to electrification.

A policy manager talked about the importance of the deadlines imposed by the air district’s rules, and how they have accelerated development of technology and smart solutions to common problems in electrification.

Tim Frank, a workforce developer shared that the workforce needs for this deployment are achievable, and there’s excellent news around training skilled workers that often gets missed.

Multiple contractors, including myself, expressed that heat pump technology is ready to deploy, and near cost parity in many situations after considering incentives. Costs will only decrease as these systems become more commonplace.

One homeowner talked about her experience getting a heat pump water heater and her concerns about how weather contractors would actually be able to complete work in a timely manner especially for disadvantaged and rural communities. And some members of the board also expressed their concerns about equity and whether there would be enough funding to allow for these transitions given the marginal cost increases in installing heat pump water heaters over gas water heaters.

A representative from Bradford White, a manufacturer of water heaters, called for more involvement in the rule making process and highlighted other air quality districts which had a different style.

Besides my notes from the meeting, you can browse through nearly 400 public comments that have been emailed in over the past 3 years on BAAQMD’s website.