New York passes first-in-nation law to ban natural gas and other fossil fuels

The state ban on gas in new buildings could face legal challenges, but it marks a milestone in the energy transition sought by climate activists

By Anna Phillips

May 3, 2023 at 8:57 a.m. EDT from the Washington Post

New York state has passed a law requiring most new buildings to be zero-emissions starting in 2026, with larger buildings to come into compliance in 2029. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

 

New York has become the first state in the nation to pass a law banning natural gas and other fossil fuels in most new buildings, a move that could inspire other states and further erode the residential future of the gas industry.

Late Tuesday night, the New York legislature approved a $229 billion state budget that included a prohibition on gas in most new homes and other construction. It was a major victory for climate activists but is likely to face a court challenge from fossil fuel interests.

The law effectively requires all-electric heating and cooking in new buildings shorter than seven stories by 2026, and in 2029 for taller buildings. And although it allows exemptions for manufacturing facilities, restaurants, hospitals and even carwashes, the measure does not do what some climate activists had feared: give cities and counties license to override the ban.

Since the beginning of this year, when a federal official suggested, and then quickly retracted, the idea that the national government might ban gas stoves, debate over the future of natural gas has flared. So it may seem surprising that as New York lawmakers headed into the final stretch of their budget talks this week, their plans to pass a statewide gas ban were essentially a foregone conclusion.

But Democrats, who control the New York Senate and Assembly, have faced pressure from environmentalists for several years to follow through on the state’s climate commitments. And, in the end, it was not negotiations over gas stoves that stirred controversy but a drawn-out fight over bail reform and housing policy that delayed approval of the budget by a month.

The law’s passage, and the approval of a measure that would require the state to build renewable energy when the private sector falls short, have fueled supporters’ hopes for New York to become a national model.

“I hear from local government and state folks frequently that they’re thinking of this sort of policy, and so I’m certain, as other policymakers look to a state that’s found a politically and technically feasible way to go about electrification, that others will be paying attention,” said Amy Turner, a senior fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

In Massachusetts, a law adopted last year has allowed 10 cities and towns to participate in a pilot program banning gas-burning stoves and furnaces from new construction. Environmentalists are eager to see the state go further, using a new building code written to discourage the use of fossil fuels. Advocates are also eyeing Chicago, where the heavily blue city recently elected a liberal mayor.

But the gas industry and its Republican supporters have raised doubts about whether New York’s gas ban can survive legal challenges. Some climate advocates worry that a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that struck down the California city of Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation gas ban could have a chilling effect on other cities and counties.

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Although the court’s decision is not legally binding in most of the United States, hesitation to adopt local gas bans could ripple outward, said Matt Vespa, a senior attorney with the nonprofit organization Earthjustice who noted that restrictions on gas use in buildings typically begin at the local level, then go statewide. In California and Washington state, major cities including San Francisco and Seattle banned gas hookups before the states enacted measures encouraging electrification through their building codes.

There are other routes to all-electric buildings besides the one Berkeley used, Vespa said, but “if you take away the local piece, that does chill upwards momentum, and people have to recalibrate.”

Opponents derided the New York bill’s passage as governmental overreach. Republican Robert Ortt, the minority leader of the New York Senate, issued a statement criticizing the law as a “first-in-the-nation, unconstitutional ban” that “will drive up utility bills and increase housing costs.”

New York’s law does not affect existing buildings, and it specifically exempts renovations. But, over time, it could chip away at the gas industry’s dominance in the state, where 3 in 5 households rely on natural gas for heating, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Only about 1 in 7 households heat with electricity.

The ban also extends to heating oil and propane, raising questions about the future of these fuels in New York state’s more rural communities.

Critics of the law have argued that it limits consumer choice and will increase utility bills by shifting more households to electricity, which is more expensive than gas in much of the state. Supporters counter that because the law affects only new construction, the transition will happen gradually and in tandem with the state’s plans to shift more of its electricity production to greener, and cheaper, sources.

Today, gas fuels 46 percent of New York’s electricity generation, but a landmark climate law passed in 2019 calls for a transition to renewable, emissions-free sources such as solar, wind and hydro power. It requires the state to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.