VICTORY ALERT WE WON! Glendale Rejects New Heat Pump and EE Mandate
VICTORY ALERT
WE WON! Glendale Rejects New Heat Pump and EE Mandate
By Janet M. Gagnon
Chief Corporate Affairs Office and Senior Vice President, Government Relations
On Tuesday, August 26th, the Glendale City Council voted 2-to-2 against a newly proposed ordinance that would have required duplex, single family and townhouse owners to replace existing gas furnaces with heat pumps or take additional energy efficiency actions when replacing or installing new air conditioning units. This expensive new mandate made no sense, especially for duplex owners that rent their properties with renters paying the utility costs for running the heat. We are thrilled that City Council Mayor Ara Najarian and Council Member Vartan Gharpetian stopped this insanity by voting NO.
As AAGLA stated in our written and oral comments, this ordinance made no logical sense whatsoever. The draft ordinance wrongly characterized replacements or installations of air conditioning for COOLING as a trigger for mandating that existing gas furnaces for HEATING to be replaced by a heat pump or requiring additional energy efficiency measures to be taken by the property owner. According to the City’s staff report, the goal was to discourage the use of gas furnaces. Therefore, the trigger should have been the replacement or installation of a furnace, not air conditioning. Unfortunately, this simple logic seemed to escape both Council Members Dan Brotman and Elen Asatryan with Brotman making the motion in support of the draft ordinance and Asatryan seconding it.
During the meeting, Mayor Najarian clearly explained the difference between “efficiency” and “costs”. Just because a heat pump may be more efficient, does not mean that it would be less expensive for owners or renters to operate. In fact, a heat pump runs on electricity. Electricity rates in California are already the highest in the nation per kilowatt hour (kWh) and are only likely to increase due to the increase is demand from electric vehicles and more air conditioning being installed (the latter being allowed by the draft ordinance). In contrast, natural gas is extremely inexpensive on a British Thermal unit (BTU) basis.
The City Council referenced a study by Frontier Energy, Inc. entitled California Energy Codes and Standards that was riddled with false assumptions, including claims that natural gas rates would skyrocket for some unexplained reason and that electricity rates would drop. No effort was made to justify such obviously false assumptions in made by the study. The study’s author doubled down and claimed that despite South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) pulling back their new regulations regarding gas furnaces, their analysis assumed there would be Zero NOx rules in place over the next 10 years creating more faulty results. Fortunately, both Mayor Najarian and Council Member Gharpetian pointed out those clearly false and unrealistic assumptions.
Further, what no one seemed to realize was that the study did NOT support the draft ordinance AT ALL. The study gave a lot of statistics about Dual Fuel Heat Pumps (DFHP) and Heat Pump Space Heaters (HPSH). However, both DFHP and HPSH were focused on the replacement of air conditioning by heat pumps and NOT replacement of gas furnaces as stated in the draft ordinance. While DFHP did mention using an existing gas furnace as a “backup” for a heat pump (which is not needed as Glendale does not get below freezing), the primary focus was on replacing the air conditioning unit. As is well known and AAGLA specifically pointed out, heat pumps can be used for both cooling AND heating. It is still a mystery as to why the draft ordinance was not written to replace air conditioning units (especially as air conditioning increases climate change by dumping heat outside creating “heat islands” and increasing temperatures) instead of furnaces in harmony with the study.
The only logical conclusion that can be drawn on this issue is that the two supporting Council Members relied much too heavily on city staff instead of conducting their own review of the study in advance of the meeting. In fact, both Mayor Najarian and Council Member Asatryan expressed their feelings of being misled by city staff (despite Asatryan then seconding Brotman’s motion to pass the fatally flawed ordinance) at the meeting.
Despite the bumpy road that was evident during the City Council meeting, we are thrilled that the right conclusion was reached, and the draft ordinance was defeated. We only hope that this serves as a wake-up call to all City Council members that it is imperative they conduct their own analysis rather than blindly following whatever is submitted by city staff and reach out to AAGLA and other key stakeholders for input.
This article is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions regarding your property or specific leasing issues and the requirements of any legal changes described herein, please consult with an attorney.