Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers v. Weiser

The federal district court for the District of Colorado granted trade associations’ motion for a preliminary injunction barring the Colorado Attorney General from implementing or enforcing a Colorado law that established requirements for disseminating certain information about air quality and health impacts of indoor gas stoves on stove labels and on internet sites where gas-fueled stoves are sold. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their First Amendment claim. The court first concluded that the labeling requirement regulated commercial speech. (The court rejected intervenor defendant Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado’s argument that the labeling requirement was government speech not subject to the First Amendment.) The court further found that the labeling requirement was “objectively controversial because there is robust disagreement by scientific sources concerning the validity of the statements” about health outcomes contained on the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment webpage to which the labels were required to refer people. Because the court found the requirement to be objectively controversial, the court applied strict scrutiny rather than the “less exacting scrutiny” of Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Although the court was not persuaded by the trade associations’ contention that the Colorado law’s public health rationale was pretextual and that the true rationale for the rule was to discourage people from using gas-fueled stoves for climate change reasons, the court found that the Attorney General “does not present any conclusive evidence regarding the potential health effects of using gas-fueled stoves” and therefore did not identify “an actual concrete problem” that would establish a compelling government interest. In addition, the court found that the labeling requirement was not narrowly tailored. Because the labeling requirement failed the strict scrutiny test and the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim, the court also found that the trade associations satisfied the irreparable harm and public interest factors of the preliminary injunction test.

On August 13, 2025, the parties filed a stipulation in which the Colorado Attorney General agreed not to initiate enforcement actions under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act for alleged violations of the labeling law until at least 14 days after the court issues a ruling on the plaintiff’s forthcoming renewed motion for a preliminary injunction.

On August 6, 2025, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers—a trade association with members that manufacture gas and electric cooking products and other appliances—filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Colorado challenging a Colorado law requiring dissemination of what the plaintiff alleged was “a non-consensus, scientifically controversial, and factually misleading government-mandated message about the purported ‘health impacts’ of gas stoves that is contrary to the view of the World Health Organization, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and federal agencies responsible for ensuring the health and safety of American consumers.” The plaintiff alleged that the law’s disclosure requirements violate the First Amendment because they are content- and viewpoint-based. The plaintiff also alleged that the law violated its members’ First Amendment rights because the legislative record showed that the legislation was not driven by purported health impacts “but instead by the unrelated policy debate on climate change and decarbonization.”