Report on the BECS Committee Meeting of May 7-8, 2025, in Clearwater, Florida.

Thanks to everyone who attended in-person or participated virtually in this week’s very productive, BECS Committee Meeting of May 7-8, 2025, in Clearwater, Florida.  The draft minutes of the meeting will be sent out soon. All presentations made at the meeting have been posted on the BECS Committee community site.

AGA Cautions Against Results of New Stanford Report on the Safety of Gas Cooking Appliances.

Attached is the May 9, 2025 AGA Press Release to urging “caution when using numbers or conclusions from the latest paper from Stanford University and author Rob Jackson in reporting and examinations of the safety of gas stoves.” The Press Release provides details on the concerns for the conclusions  in the study and cites the February 2024 study published in The Lancet medical journal and funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) with no industry partnerships “confirmed that the risk of asthma from natural gas use was potentially exaggerated in previous studies with little or no limited adjustment for confounders…” In a related matter on gas cooking appliance safety, on February 26, 2025, Peter Feldman, Acting Chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), authored the attached letter to the General Accountability Office (GAO) on a study issued by GAO (GAO -25-107514) reporting that, “On March 7, 2023, the Commission published a Request for Information (RFI) on gas cooking appliance safety and goes on to state, “The comment period on this RFI closed in May 2023 and I consider this matter concluded”.

AHRI Releases March 2025 Heating and Cooling Equipment Shipment Data.

For those interested in shipment trends for residential and commercial gas and electric storage type water heaters, residential gas and oil furnaces, electric heat pumps and air-conditioners, click here for the May 9, 2025 Air-Conditioning Heating, & Refrigeration (AHRI) Press Release that provides the March, 2025 U.S. Heating and Cooling Equipment Shipment Data. For previous monthly shipment releases and historical data, please click here . You may also wish to share this information with other groups or individuals within your organization that would be interested in this shipment data.

State Codes Activity Update.

Attached is a weekly feature of the “Friday Update” covering state code calendar activities as presented by the online utility “Fiscal Note,” which is sponsored by APGA and AGA Code and Standards. Please review the update and determine if there are state code activities that impact your service territory or organization.