By Bradford White Corporation
Since the City of Berkeley passed an ordinance that prohibited natural gas hookups to newly constructed homes in 2019, the future of natural gas as a building fuel source has been a hotly debated topic in our industry. Indeed, Berkeley was followed by dozens of other California communities that adopted similar policies, and Washington State even enacted residential and commercial building codes with similar restrictions.
While the United States 9th Circuit Court ruling in California Restaurants Association v. Berkeley has called the legality of these policies into question (Berkeley even agreed to repeal their original ordinance earlier this year), this matter is hardly settled. Beyond the west coast, and the 9th Circuit Court’s jurisdiction, other states and municipalities have followed in Berkeley’s footsteps. At the end of 2021, New York City approved legislation that would prohibit all, smaller new buildings from being connected to natural gas at the beginning of this year. The law includes larger buildings after July 1, 2027.
Not to be outdone by their counterparts in the city, state policymakers in Albany passed legislation in 2023 to make New York the first state to outlaw natural gas hookups to new buildings. The statewide ban applies to any new buildings under 100,000 square feet after December 31, 2025, and for larger buildings after December 31, 2028, with some exceptions. It should be noted that the actions discussed here in New York and Washington are facing similar legal challenges to the City of Berkeley.
In some states, rather than pushing for policies that directly ban natural gas, policymakers have gotten more creative. This is perhaps most prominent in California where the state’s Air Resources Board is looking to ban the sale and installation of gas-fired appliances before the end of the decade. Similar efforts may soon come to the east coast in Maryland where Governor Wes Moore signed Executive Directive 19 earlier this month. The action calls on the Maryland Department of Environment to propose regulations that would require all space and water heating equipment in the state to emit zero-emissions. The Directive does not set a specific date as to when the Department must begin or complete this work.
Elsewhere in Illinois, legislation was introduced earlier this year that would restrict NOx emissions from boilers and water heaters with inputs under 2 MMBtu/h, before requiring them to emit zero NOx by 2030. Colorado passed a similar law last year, but that bill was amended to dictate only that the state review their NOx emissions policies before moving to further restrict, or prohibit, emissions from these products. Colorado also considered legislation earlier this year that would have required all air conditioning units installed after 2027 to include a reversing valve that would allow the unit to also serve as the primary source of building space heating. While these efforts in Illinois and Colorado ultimately failed, they show that policymakers away from the coasts are also looking for ways to ban or severely restrict the use of natural gas in our industry.
Bradford White’s Government and Regulatory Affairs team is continuously watching and monitoring these policy proposals as they continue to evolve and are advocating for more responsible approaches to combating climate change at all levels of government. However, given the sheer number of state and local government proposals on this topic, we need your help as well. If you are aware of any policy proposal in your area concerning the future of natural gas, or anything else impactful to our industry, please do not hesitate to let us know about it at
BWCGovReg@bradfordwhite.com.
