The bureaucrats were at it again — this time aiming straight at your home. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) was preparing to push through a plan that would phase out the sale of gas-powered furnaces and water heaters across Southern California. On paper, it’s about clean air. In reality, it was yet another costly, poorly-timed burden on the backs of already struggling Californians.
California doesn’t have a reliable energy grid. We have already experienced rolling blackouts, brownouts, and repeated grid strain warnings. And now, regulators want to pile millions of new high-demand electric appliances onto an already overstressed system? This is not environmental leadership, it’s political malpractice.
Electric heat pumps cost an average of $17,200 to install, versus $11,000 for a natural gas furnace. And that doesn’t even include the hidden costs: electrical panel upgrades, labor, permits, and the inevitable grid fees. The AQMD’s own report admits that most consumers will pay more. Their response, of course, is “Incentives” funded by — you guessed it — more ratepayer and taxpayer dollars.
If you’re middle class, you’re footing the bill both coming and going.
Electric appliances also don’t work when the power goes out. So when the next blackout hits (and it will), families won’t be able to heat their homes, warm water, or cook a meal. That’s not just inconvenient — that’s dangerous. And it’s outrageous that none of this seems to bother the people writing these rules.
The AQMD wants you to believe this isn’t a mandate. But let’s not kid ourselves. It’s a rigged game: electric appliance quotas, penalties on manufacturers for selling too many gas units, and extra fees tacked on to “non-compliant” purchases. Sure, they say you have a choice, but they’re making the “wrong” choice unaffordable on purpose.
This is how governments restrict freedoms without ever passing a law: regulate, penalize, and price you into compliance.
California already has some of the highest electricity rates in the country. Yet our grid is aging, unreliable, and under constant strain. We pay more to get less, and now we’re being told to put even more demand on it?
This isn’t climate policy. It’s wealth extraction. The state is bleeding its middle class dry one mandate, one utility bill, one “public health” regulation at a time. And when you can’t keep up, when you can’t retrofit your house or install a $20,000 electric system, your only option left is to pack up and leave.
And maybe that’s the point.
Want to clean the air? Start with real investment in grid modernization. Offer real incentives, not backdoor penalties disguised as “choice.” Fix the power outages before piling more onto the system. And most importantly, talk to the people who actually live with these appliances every day — homeowners, renters, working families — instead of rubber-stamping policies pushed by special interest groups and bureaucratic crusaders.
Enough is enough. Californians are tired of being treated like the problem. We love our state. But we need leadership that respects our reality, not policies that ignore it.
Until then, every new mandate is just one more reason to call it what it’s become: the Vampire State. And it won’t rest until it’s drained every last dollar from the people trying to stay afloat. This measure has been tabled for now, but we anticipate it will be revisited in the near future.
