The Surprising Force Stalling Climate Progress: California Restaurants [funded by the gas industry]
The Surprising Force Stalling Climate Progress: California Restaurants [funded by the gas industry]
The gas industry funded the whole thing:
In today’s fight over gas, CRA also hasn’t acted on its own. It refuses to say who paid the legal bills for its Berkeley suit. As a nonprofit, it must make its tax filings public. In these forms, nonprofits are supposed to disclose contractors to whom they paid at least $100,000 in the previous year. CRA regularly lists law firms working on its behalf, such as those litigating Covid-related restrictions. But the restaurant group has never disclosed a payment to Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP, the law firm that spearheaded the Berkeley case.
The Berkeley lawsuit topped the $100,000 threshold. When Sarah Jorgensen, the law firm’s founding partner, spoke at a National Propane Gas Association board meeting in February, she was asked what a legal challenge of this sort would cost, according to a recording of the discussion heard by Bloomberg Green. After an NPGA executive estimated it would require $300,000 to $400,000 to take a case to court and “another couple of hundred thousand” for appeals, Jorgensen said “we definitely spent more than that on Berkeley.” In a written response to questions, Jorgensen declined to say who paid their legal bills.
So what if it was funded by the gas industry? They’re not wrong, and the restaurant industry agrees with them.
Natural gas use for cooking is a rounding error for climate change.
Why should restaurants be forced to use something expensive and inferior?
We need to get to zero, and stoves are a key marketing point that results in the installation of gas heat and a methane-leaking distribution network which are both quite meaningful.
Induction is also @#$@#$ amazing. Not going back to gas. Ever.
Irrelevant to commercial. A reasonably big restaurant doesn't get enough amps in the panel to replace all their gas equipment with induction, especially in grid-strained California. Not unless it's new construction in an area with quality 3 phase electrical service.
It was a huge, huge, huge mistake that the places that banned new fossil gas installs made it ALL installs instead of just residential.
They made an enemy out of the national restaurant association for no reason and have faced huge setbacks in otherwise-good legislation as a result. It's all just so stupid and shortsighted. Especially since, as the other guy pointed out, commercial gas cooking is not a major contributor. Even just compared to the leaky, awful, terribly, idiotic residential fossil gas network.
This is about restaurants, not residential.