By Kennedy Maize
In a little-noticed move last month (Jan. 5), the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in California to overturn functionally dead ordinances of two cities, Morgan Hill (population 45,483) and Petaluma (population 59,776), that forbade natural gas appliances in new buildings, effectively making them “all electric.”
It’s an issue that goes back to 2019 in California, when the state adopted an “all electric” law but later abandoned it even before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving the city of Burbank, ruled it was invalid in 2023. 
The appeals court found that the federal 1975 Energy Conservation and Policy Act (EPCA) “expressly preempts State and local regulations concerning the energy use of many natural gas appliances, including those used in household and restaurant kitchens. Instead of directly banning those appliances in new buildings, Berkeley took a more circuitous route to the same result and enacted a building code that prohibits natural gas piping into those buildings, rendering the gas appliances useless.”
The issue had largely disappeared from view in California. KQED reported that Morgan City Attorney Donald Larkin said, “While we are still reviewing the complaint, this lawsuit appears to be an unnecessary effort to require the City to follow laws with which the City is already in compliance.”
An analysis from the Beveridge & Diamond law firm commented that because the cities have not been enforcing the ordinances, “the case seems unlikely to be contested or to lead to a published opinion.”
Nevertheless, the DOJ action may indicate that the Trump administration is going against other instances of “state and local electrification mandates that remain on the books.” This risk could extend to:
- New York’s All-Electric Buildings Act, which takes effect this year and requires most new buildings up to seven stories in height to use electric heat and appliances.
- Montgomery County, Maryland’s “all-electric” building code for new construction that takes effect beginning in 2027 (Chapter 8, Sec. 8-14B).
- Ordinances adopted by ten Massachusetts communities under the State’s Municipal Fossil Fuel Free Building Demonstration Program, authorizing them to require new construction or major renovation projects “to be fossil fuel free.”
Justice cites EPCA as its legal authority for overriding state and local laws, echoing the 9th Circuit’s decision in the City of Berkeley case: “Under that controlling precedent, Morgan Hill’s and Petaluma’s natural gas bans are invalid—as numerous other California cities have recognized when recently repealing or suspending their equivalent bans. The United States brings this declaratory and injunctive action to stop these Cities from enforcing the preempted measures that drive up costs and reduce consumer freedom.”
The complaint also rolls out aggressive White House language, citing two Trump executive orders — “Unleashing American Energy” and “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach”, calling the California ordinances “radical measures” that “weaken our national security and devastate Americans by driving up energy costs for families coast to-coast,”and commenting that Trump “directed the Attorney General ‘to take all appropriate action to stop’ measures she ‘determines to be illegal.’”
Two concepts drove the California cities and others around the country in the 2020 timeframe to ban use of gas appliances in new buildings. The most important was environmental, as methane, the chief ingredient in pipeline natural gas, is a potent, although short-lived greenhouse gas. The Trump administration, of course, is convinced against all evidence that global warming is a radical hoax.
The second driver, a bit more tangential, was a public health concern, as reports surfaced at the time that cooking with gas was increasing childhood asthma. An academic article claimed to have found a significant “association” between stovetop gas and asthma in kids in families with gas stoves, via oxides of nitrogen emissions. The lead author was an environmental activist at RMI (the Rocky Mountain Institute).
That prompted a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Richard Trumka Jr., son of the late head of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka (1949-2021), to get far ahead of his agency. Trumka suggested in a Bloomberg interview that the CPSC was on the verge of banning new gas cook stoves. “This is a hidden hazard,” he said. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
That option wasn’t even near the table, but Trumka’s gaffe got a lot of attention before the CPSC deep-sixed it.
Also debunked was the asthma claim. A detailed analysis in the journal Global Epidemiology found “that the epidemiology literature is limited by high heterogeneity and low study quality and, therefore, it does not provide sufficient evidence regarding causal relationships between gas cooking or indoor NO2 and asthma or wheeze.”