The First Natural Gas Ban in the U.S. Just Got Shot Down [View all]

[Jose Garcia]

Source: Gizmodo

When the city of Berkeley, California passed the country’s first ban on the use of natural gas in new buildings in the summer of 2019, environmental advocates celebrated the move as an important precedent for other cities to follow. And follow they did: There are now at least 99 similar ordinances in place across the country, the vast majority of which require appliances like stoves and heaters to be electric. But on Monday, a federal appeals court threw many of those bans into question.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Berkeley’s ban is preempted by a federal law, and is therefore illegal. The decision marks a victory for the California Restaurant Association, the organization that sued the city shortly after it passed the ordinance banning the use of natural gas in new construction, claiming that such a measure would damage the restaurant industry.

“Many restaurants will be faced with the inability to make many of their products which require the use of specialized gas appliances to prepare, including for example flame-seared meats, charred vegetables, or the use of intense heat from a flame under a wok,” the lawsuit read.

But advocates argue that those concerns are dwarfed by a growing body of research that has found natural gas use in buildings not only releases huge quantities of greenhouse gasses, but also threatens people’s health. Studies have found that gas stoves are responsible for approximately 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the U.S.; they also leak the potent greenhouse gas methane and the cancer-causing chemical benzene even when they’re turned off.

Read more: https://gizmodo.com/the-first-natural-gas-ban-in-the-u-s-just-got-shot-dow-1850352032