SAFE Responds to Court Decision to Block Berkeley’s Gas Prohibition

The staff of environmental advocacy organization Stand.earth and its SAFE Cities initiative team was disappointed earlier this week to read of the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to block the City of Berkeley gas prohibition in new buildings.

The court’s decision to undermine a local government’s effort to protect residents and the climate by accelerating building electrification progress is poorly conceived, ill-advised, and likely to face challenges.

But even if it stands, it’s important to remember that this decision only affects a small fraction of existing building-electrification policies enacted in a limited portion of the United States. This week’s decision may threaten the validity of similar ordinances that rely on police powers in communities under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit, including the roughly 25 cities in California who followed Berkeley’s lead on this legal approach to their policies prohibiting fossil-fuel infrastructure.

However, the reassuring news is that there are now more than 100 locations that have passed some sort of building electrification policy, meaning that nearly 80 percent of them — including those based around building code authority, air emissions standards or natural gas distribution powers — remain intact and unaltered by this decision.

This is evidence of the immense influence that rests in the hands of local elected officials to move their communities toward electrification.

“Communities still have a variety of proven policies and powerful legislative tools at their disposal to effectively make these shifts,” said Nathan Taft, senior digital campaigner for SAFE Cities at Stand. “It’s essential that local leaders continue to drive this work forward because federal and state governments aren’t moving nearly quickly enough.”

With resources like SAFE Cities’ map repository that charts policies successfully used to limit fossil fuels worldwide, and with collaborative structures like the NEOS network that facilitates connection and coordination between people advancing this work in local governments, we’re building this movement together.

While communities are still iterating and identifying new pathways forward to accelerate local building electrification efforts, there is clear consensus on our need to make a rapid transition away from reliance on burning gas for cooking and heating. Health advocates and climate scientists agree on the urgency of this issue, and local communities retain a great deal of authority to make shifts that benefit both residents and the climate by pursuing electrification.

In order to meet the climate crisis with the speed and strength it demands, it is imperative that communities have access to all legal pathways possible to phase out gas in new construction and retrofit existing buildings to rely on clean energy. And it’s crucial that local governments remain empowered and inspired to continue working toward this transition away from the destructive effects of fossil fuels. The health of our communities and our climate depend on it.