Cities intent on restricting the use of natural gas may need to find a different approach, said Amy Turner, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
Many environmental leaders applaud such anti-gas policies, given that residential and commercial buildings contribute roughly 25% of all state greenhouse gas emissions, according to the California Energy Commission. Soon after Berkeley’s natural gas ban passed, lawmakers in more than 70 California cities — as well as local governments in Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Oregon and Colorado — followed suit with variations of their own.
In a similar but more poetic vein, one California chef has compared the gas restrictions to “taking paint away from a painter and asking them to create a masterpiece.” This interpretation was a surprise to Turner, who said Berkeley wasn’t changing the ways that appliance manufacturers have to make their products — an obvious violation of the Energy Act’s preemption — but instead was regulating energy distribution across the city. Whether or not this is in line with Congress’ intended motivation for passing the law in the 1970s, Turner said judges can rule based on the wording of the law alone.
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