Requiring AC in L.A. through new diktat

Air conditioning?

If the month-long May Gray that has merely transitioned into June Gloom in Southern California keeps up, it's the furnaces that are going to be overworked around here, not the AC.

But, inevitably, seriously, when actual summer finally does come to these parts, it will soon be hot as blazes.

July, followed closely by August and then September, are our historically hottest months. And the very real fact of global warming is going to make summers here hotter than ever.

Air conditioning — in homes, offices, stores, in our cars — makes it all more bearable. Most ironically, the subsequent high energy use also increases climate change on the planet, but that's a topic for another day.

Given its increasing propensity to operate by diktat rather than common sense, it comes as no surprise that the Los Angeles City Council is considering requiring apartment building owners to install air conditioning in every unit — no matter what the cost, no matter that such costs must be inevitably passed on to tenants, as there is no such thing as a free ... cool breeze.

“At this point in the climate emergency, the ability to cool one's home cannot be considered a luxury and rather must be treated as a necessity,” Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said in introducing a resolution to study creating such a new city law, Nathan Solis reports in the Los Angeles Times. “Requiring cooling apparati for all residential units could be a lifesaving measure for countless Angelenos during extreme heat events.”

We understand it's getting hotter, and that AC is increasingly necessary. But we also agree with the California Apartment Association, which says renters know what's available when they lease and are free to approach landlords if they want cooling in their units, the same as other amenities. And we also wonder why the housing code goals of statewide group Leadership Counsel aren't being considered: better insulation, more cooling shade from trees, efficient heat pumps and roofs that reflect sunlight.

Before the city piles yet another mandate on apartment owners, it ought to consider cooling alternatives, and the economic need for a free housing market as well.