Posted on 03/25/2025 6:11:51 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Cities looking to eliminate fossil fuels in buildings have notched a decisive court victory. Last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by plumbing and building trade groups against a New York City ban on natural gas in new buildings. The decision is the first to explicitly disagree with a previous ruling that struck down Berkeley, California’s first-in-the-nation gas ban. That order, issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 and upheld again last year, prompted cities across the country to withdraw or delay laws modeled after the Berkeley ordinance.
While New York City’s law functions differently from Berkeley’s, legal experts say that this month’s decision provides strong legal footing for all types of local policies to phase out gas in buildings — and could encourage cities to once again take ambitious action.
“It’s a clear win in that regard, because the 9th Circuit decision has had a really chilling effect on local governments,” said Amy Turner, director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “Now there’s something else to point to, and a good reason for hope for local governments that may have back-burnered their building electrification plans to bring those to the forefront again.”
In 2021, New York City adopted Local Law 154, which sets an air emissions limit for indoor combustion of fuels within new buildings. Under the law, the burning of “any substance that emits 25 kilograms or more of carbon dioxide per million British thermal units of energy” is prohibited.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
God damn these activist judges.
The “chilling effect” you feel will be the electricity going out.
I’m not surprised. Cities are allowed zoning laws. Now it’s just a case of survival of the fittest. I predict cities that don’t have NG bans will flourish.
The EPA is going to follow the Dept of Education into the history books.
The office of EPA Air Quality Manager in Durham, NC was one of my previous employers in the 90’s after retirement from the Army. They did good work, but they relied on compliance through other Federal and State agencies to enforce rules. Any number of other agencies can fulfill the role of the EPA who has thousands of employees. They are easily cut from the Federal Budget.
EPA is called a regulatory agency because Congress authorizes us to write regulations that explain the technical, operational, and legal details necessary to implement laws. Regulations are mandatory requirements that can apply to individuals, businesses, state or local governments, non-profit institutions, or others.
Yes, indeed. While a slow-motion phenomenon, it has been observable. In Berkeley's case:
$ 323,048 debt per US taxpayerNearly 1 Million Californians Fled the State Last Year — Where Did They Go and Why? Reform California, 28 December 2023.Plus an additional....
Plus an addition 1% base tax rate for assessed property value, plus Berkkeley's 10.25 % sales tax, plus ....
One finds: "Berkeley, California gets a BestPlaces Cost of Living score of 195.5, which means the total cost of housing, food, childcare, transportation, healthcare, taxes, and other necessities is 95.5% higher than the U.S. average and 30.4% lower than the average for California."
Source: Berkeley, CA Cost of Living
We had property and assets in California, and no longer do. No more taxes to be paid to a super-majority Democrat-led state.
I’m starting to wonder if Doge shouldn’t be investigating whose family members are on the boards of electrical suppliers and providers, or is it as simple as checking campaign contributions?
Natural gas is literally the cleanest energy we have!
Just like the States, if you don’t like what is happening in your city, either run for office and change it or MOVE OUT.
makes no sense. they make most electricity with natural gas.
Yes some like the feeling of being owned as many judges do until they find them self hanging in a tree from it.
It wasn’t a safety net after all
I used to live on Guam. On Guam you have to use propane rather than natural gas. They took the gas mains out due to the frequency of earthquakes or typhoons causing pipeline ruptures and uncontrollable fires.
There are very good reasons for places in earthquake prone areas to ban the use of natural gas.
Let them, that just leaves more gas for the rest of us. Their cites will continue to fail, and I will sit back with some popcorn.
I am not convinced that this is a “win” for electric companies. New York City would be an excellent test case.
There is a massive amount of energy delivered as natural gas available for space heating, water heating and cooking. This is delivered separately from electricity. To combine this entire load as electricity might be impossible for a city like New York, which does have COLD Winters.
My own thought is that part of the effort for the “Green Scam” is to create electricity for the newly created demand. This would likely be nuclear. When the energy source is in place, it will be routed to our overlords, the AIs and their Data Centers. The People will freeze, but a life of eating bugs probably isn’t worth living. ;-)
At what point does interpreting the law cross over to writing new legislation and regulations?
Thank you for the interesting post. I did not know that, about Guam.
Your story is interesting on several levels. New York City is very earthquake-stable, I believe. Some gas lines, there, are positively ancient. It is known for extremely cold Winters, as well. I doubt that Guam used much gas for heating.
You bring up fires, and I am imaging New York enjoying electrical fires just like the good old days of Thomas Edison. There seems to be no thought in this edict of how this energy can be delivered safely as electricity.
One last note was that your story intrigued me in the similarity between propane and natural gas. I suppose that propane is just a more distributed system that might localize any earthquake damage. Where I live, natural gas is not available, but I could have an outdoor propane tank installed. Fire and commitment to propane costs is what stops me.
At what point does interpreting the law cross over to writing new legislation and regulations?
We actually passed that point years ago. The catastrophe that is Roberts is killing us.
I wonder if some engineers could design a flexible pipe to deal with that.
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