I have just read in the daily post that trying to make people change from gas to electric stoves may be illegal and the whole thing may come to nothing.

This story is full of bad information. First, if ANY of the combustion products from a gas hot water heater or furnace get into the home, the vent is damaged or not properly installed and should be fixed immediately. Put another way, if your gas water heater or furnace affects your indoor air quality, it should be repaired.
Second, the UCLA study compared unvented gas cook stoves with electric stoves. It has nothing to do with gas home heating. 100 years ago everyone knew that gas cook stoves needed to be vented outside. Sometime around 50 years ago, the energy conservation movement decided that houses needed to be air tight, and the result was a lot more asthma, especially in children. There is nothing wrong with a gas cooktop as long as it is paired with an exhaust hood that is actually vented outside. My grandmother knew this 100 years ago; why do we not understand this now?

Indoor air quality is certainly a problem with gas stoves. Even if you use the exhaust fan when cooking (as you certainly should) since they leak 24/7. See Stanford study: Web Link

Pertaining to the narrative to transition to electric, PGE was granted rate hikes and we should expect to see this each year. Consumers will bear the brunt of higher pricing to address a very small part of what would address an impact to the environment.

CALIFORNIA, USA — Starting Jan. 1 PG&E power & gas bills will go up 12% or 13%. The California Public Utilities Commission, the agency that sets rates for power companies, approved a more than a billion-dollar rate hike for PG&E Thursday afternoon.

In Chevron’s latest SEC filings, they are writing down $ billions of energy assets in California as the severe unnecessary regulations on the energy sector make further investing in California as not viable. The state and federal narrative policies will continue to result in higher pricing for no environmental gain.

If anyone is interested in an electric car, Hertz is dumping 20,000 electric cars as the demand did not substantiate the further investment.

Excellent article, Debbie. I especially appreciated the information about the rebates available to us to soften the expense of doing what's right.

@eenee - it's more complicated. We may need to change over our gas furnaces and gas water heaters due to a recent BAAQMD ruling on air quality. The gas stoves thing is a different issue, and you are referring to the Berkeley lawsuit that's based on a different area of the law.

@neighbor of PA
Fortunately, the Stanford study in your link only found indoor air quality issues for "...people who don’t use their range hoods or who have poor ventilation...", so no worries if you're using the range hood. The grandkids will be fine :)

Methane on its own is not a health problem, but if you do smell the added odorant, something is wrong - call the utility's emergency number to get it fixed and stay safe.

For those uncertain about the performance of induction cooktops, decent-quality standalone single induction hotplates are available for less than $100 to see for yourself. The also enable induction cooking in houses without the 50A 220V circuit needed for a full induction range.