{"slug": "letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric", "title": "Letters: Critics are using scare tactics to stop switch to electric", "summary": "John McKenna argues that critics are using scare tactics to oppose Bay Area Air District appliance rules, noting that most homes can transition to electric appliances without costly panel upgrades. Thomas Baker questions how California's price gouging bill will work if oil companies leave the state. Ann Davis supports voter ID laws, comparing them to requirements for boarding airplanes.", "body_md": "**Getting your**\n\n[Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...**Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.**\n\n#### Critics use scare tactics to stop electric switch\n\nRe: “[No getting around cost of switching from gas](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/26/letters-countys-inaction-children-at-risk/)” (Page A6, July 3).\n\nLife-saving and health-improving Bay Area Air District appliance rules will be implemented over many years, with the residential water heater phase expected next year. Misinformation and disinformation have generated concerns that replacing a polluting gas water heater when it fails with a clean electric-powered device will necessitate an expensive and time-consuming main electrical panel upsizing.\n\nWhile sometimes true, in most situations it will be unnecessary. Moreover, building science advancements and new technologies now allow a majority of homes with at least 100 amps to transition all of the home’s fossil fuel-powered appliances to electric without a panel upsizing, likely reducing home energy bills. Silicon Valley Clean Energy’s [FAQ](https://svcleanenergy.org/2026/06/17/air-district-rules-faqs/) explains the rules and lists helpful resources.\n\nThe Air District is contemplating a number of common-sense exemptions (including electrical capacity constraints) to allow equitable and effective rule implementation, improving lives now and creating a brighter future for our youth.\n\n**John McKenna**\n\n*Menlo Park*\n\n#### Short-sighted bill won’t curtail oil prices\n\nRe: “[Price gouging targeted in new bill](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/29/wartime-price-gouging-act-would-give-california-attorney-general-new-powers/)” (Page A1, July 1).\n\nIt’s great — California lawmakers are moving to provide the state attorney general with powers to investigate oil companies suspected of price gouging because of the Iran war.\n\nIt will be interesting to see how well the oil companies will cooperate. What is the attorney general going to do if they just decide to leave? I’m curious, though, how much of these new investigative powers will provide the attorney general with the authority to investigate the liberal supermajority gouging us with confiscatory taxes.\n\n**Thomas Baker**\n\n*San Jose*\n\n#### Showing ID to vote shouldn’t be problem\n\nRe: “[Enshrine voting as our explicitly protected right](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/07/03/durbin-its-time-for-a-constitutional-amendment-to-protect-the-right-to-vote/)” (Page A6, July 3).\n\nU.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s opinion piece July 3rd states the SAVE America Act would “upend” voter registration by requiring people to find their original birth certificate, if they are “lucky.”\n\nAll a person needs is a passport or an original birth certificate. People should already have that information readily available because they need it to get a REAL ID to board an airplane on any domestic flight. I show my ID for all sorts of tasks, even to purchase Sudafed.\n\nVoting is important, and ID should be shown there too. And if there is no voter fraud, then the election results should not be impacted. If I am required to prove who I am to board an airplane, then I should be required to prove who I am to vote.\n\n**Ann Davis**\n\n*Sunnyvale*\n\n#### Common-sense laws can slow heat domes\n\nRe: “[What makes a ‘heat dome’ and what does it mean?](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/29/heat-dome-explained/)” (June 29).\n\nHere’s a thought experiment. What does summer mean to you? The days are longer, and you have time to enjoy the outdoors: hiking, the beach, baseball games, trips to see family. Maybe you’re finally taking that bucket list vacation to Europe. And then you look at the headlines. Heat dome threatens Fourth of July festivities. Game cancelled due to risk of heat stroke. Heat wave kills thousands.\n\nYou might be asking yourself when you first heard the term “heat dome,” an atmospheric phenomenon that makes heat waves more intense and longer lasting. Now, it’s our new summer reality as climate change makes these once rare events more and more common.\n\nSo what can we do about it? While we may not be able to dial back climate change entirely, we can enact common-sense measures — permit reform to enable large green energy projects, electrification — to keep these problems from getting even worse.\n\n**Shaun Kelley Jahshan**\n\n*Los Altos Hills*\n\n#### Campaigns should clean up signs after elections\n\nAlthough the election ended a month ago, streets are cluttered with campaign signs that should be removed.\n\nEthan Agarwal or any other candidate would be better at ensuring campaign signs are removed after the election. Too many leave signs on property or in places where they are no longer allowed, leaving taxpayers and local governments to deal with the mess. If a resident left advertising signs in the rights-of-way, they would be expected to remove them. Political campaigns should be held to the same standard.\n\nIf you can’t be trusted to clean up your signs (messes you made), how can we trust you to clean up other problems?\n\nSeeking public office should include respect for the community and the law. Candidates who ask for our votes should remove their signs after the election.\n\n**Jim Wissick**\n\n*San Jose*\n\n#### This summer, let’s do away with rodeos\n\nSummer marks a new season of misery for animals used in rodeos.\n\nRodeo “entertainment” makes sport of animals’ desire to escape. Terrified individuals are chased into a noisy arena, then roped or grappled by a lunging human, often injuring the animals. Bulls and horses are fitted with a “flank strap” cinched tightly across the genitals, causing intense pain that makes these normally gentle animals buck wildly. Use of electrical prods, or “hotshots,” is widespread.\n\nRoping calves incur hemorrhages, torn muscles, torn ligaments and damage to the trachea, throat and thyroid. Many end up in the slaughterhouse.\n\nThe Woodside Jr. Rodeo includes a “Pig Scramble” where kids chase, jump on and drag terrified pigs.\n\nNearly every animal protection organization in North America condemns rodeos due to their inherent cruelty.\n\nDon’t attend rodeos. Better yet, protest them and protect animals.\n\n**Karen Rubio**\n\n*Los Gatos*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric", "canonical_source": "https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/07/07/letters-critics-scare-tactics-switch-electric/", "published_at": "2026-07-07 23:00:54+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-07 23:30:26.938308+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy"], "entities": ["Bay Area Air District", "Silicon Valley Clean Energy", "John McKenna", "Thomas Baker", "Ann Davis", "Dick Durbin"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/letters-critics-are-using-scare-tactics-to-stop-switch-to-electric.jsonld"}}