When the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) filed a federal lawsuit last year challenging Colorado’s new gas stove labeling law, it exposed a troubling pattern of how climate advocacy can morph into scientific misinformation to achieve policy goals through fear rather than facts.

At the heart of the court dispute is House Bill 25-1161, which requires retailers to affix yellow warning labels to gas stoves sold in Colorado. The labels must direct consumers to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment  website, which lists serious health conditions — including asthma, heart disease, and even leukemia — allegedly linked to gas stove use.

There is just one problem: the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence shows no such connection exists. 

So if the science does not  support health warnings on gas stoves, why did Colorado pass this law? The answer lies in the legislative record, which reveals that HB25-1161 was never really about consumer health — it was about climate policy and demonizing fossil fuels. State Sen. Katie Wallace, a co-sponsor of the bill, made this explicit during committee testimony: “Gas appliances contribute to climate change and must be part of the conversation as we look to combat that existential crisis.”

This strategy did not emerge from nowhere. In 2022, the Harvard Environmental Law Review published an essay that laid out the blueprint.  Rather than debating climate policy on its merits, environmental  activists could sidestep that conversation by frightening consumers about their kitchen appliances. The article was refreshingly candid about this tactical shift: “The fossil gas industry has made consumer attachment to gas stoves the centerpiece of its anti-electrification messaging. To counter and overcome this strategy, building electrification advocates must tell their own story about gas stoves, and it is hard to imagine any narrative more salient than the reality of an everyday kitchen appliance that is literally poisoning our children in their own homes.”

Never mind that the science does not  support the “poisoning our children” narrative. The goal was to create a compelling story that would advance decarbonization policies.

Beyond the scientific dishonesty, Colorado’s law raises serious First Amendment concerns. It forces manufacturers and retailers to speak a government-mandated message with which they fundamentally disagree — that gas stoves pose health risks when the scientific evidence does not  support that claim.

The Supreme Court has been clear that the government cannot “compel a person to speak its own preferred messages.” Compelled disclosures are constitutional only when they are “purely factual and uncontroversial.” Courts have consistently held that disclosures not rooted in scientific consensus are neither purely factual nor uncontroversial.

The gas stove controversy is a case study in how political objectives can corrupt the scientific process. When activists decided that health fears were a more effective tool than climate arguments for achieving their electrification goals, they cherry-picked studies, exaggerated findings, and manufactured a crisis that does not exist. This should concern everyone, regardless of their views on climate policy. Once we accept that the government can compel speech based on politically convenient falsehoods rather than scientific consensus, we have crossed a dangerous line. Today it is gas stoves. Tomorrow it could be any product that happens to conflict with the prevailing political agenda.

Science works through rigorous testing, peer review, and building consensus over time. It does not  work through advocacy groups shopping for favorable studies, media sensationalism, or government mandates that force companies to parrot misleading claims.

On  Dec. 19, 2025, U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews  in a thoughtful and measured opinion,  granted a preliminary injunction barring the state and its agencies from enforcing this ill-conceived law.   Judge Crews found that House Bill 25-1161 “likely violates Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights” by compelling speech that is scientifically controversial and unsupported by consensus evidence.

AHAC hired Dr. Stacey Benson, Ph.D., a respected epidemiologist, and toxicologist with 20 years’ experience. She systematically dismantled the state’s claims through two detailed expert declarations.  She conducted the “gold standard” analysis — an exhaustive review using the Bradford Hill Criteria, the framework epidemiologists have employed since the 1960s to assess causation. She examined three major meta-analyses and 69 individual studies encompassing 122 effect estimates across respiratory symptoms and diseases.  Dr. Benson testified there is “no scientific consensus that using gas stoves for home cooking is associated with or causes any health impacts.”

Colorado enlisted Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado as an intervenor, which retained two experts to rebut Dr. Benson. Dr. Michael Johnson opined that gas stoves create “elevated indoor pollutant concentrations,” but Judge Crews noted that  Johnson did “not connect the ‘elevated indoor pollutant concentrations’ to concrete health impacts.”

Dr. Jennifer L. Peel, a professor at Colorado State University, went way beyond the science and  argued there is  “broad scientific consensus” that pollutants from gas cooking are “linked to adverse health effects.” But Judge Crews found, at most, this meant there was a “robust scientific debate” and therefore the required disclosure was objectively controversial and a constitutional violation. 

Colorado’s gas stove law is not science-based regulation — it is activism wearing a lab coat. Judge Crews saw through it, and his preliminary injunction represents an important victory for both free speech and scientific integrity.

Frances A. Koncilja is a Denver attorney and former member of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Koncilja handles energy and regulatory matters through Koncilja Energy Law and Policy. The views expressed here are her own and do not represent the opinions of her clients.