“We’re giving technologies an opportunity to mature and meet the challenge and for the grid to expand capacity and become fully renewable. We’re not doing a cannonball, but we’re sending a clear signal that this is how it’s going to be,” he said. The ban applies to heating and clothes dryers, but currently exempts water heaters, which will eventually be included.Ĭouncil member James Gennaro, who chairs the council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, said he consulted the construction industry and electrical utilities in crafting his proposal. The law will require newly permitted buildings shorter than seven stories to go all-electric by 2024, with taller buildings following in 2027. 1 polluters in New York are big buildings, and there’s a heavy reliance on natural gas.” We have very cold winters and hot summers, and we’re saying all-electric is possible,” said Annie Carforo, an organizer with WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a Manhattan-based community organization that supported the ban. Many of the cities that have enacted similar bans are on the West Coast-starting with Berkeley, California, in 2019-with warmer climates and less intensive gas use. New York City’s decision to ban natural gas connections in new construction was significant not only because the city is the largest in the United States, but also because it’s a cold-weather city that relies extensively on natural gas for heating. Some laws have specifically exempted gas stoves, which produce minimal emissions compared with building and water heating. Natural gas bans also have drawn the ire of some restaurant industry groups, which say that chefs rely on flame cooking and temperature control that can’t be easily replicated from electric sources. Lawmakers pushing the bans say their plans will be phased in gradually enough to allow energy companies to meet the added demand with renewable electricity. Carbon-free electricity from wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear projects now makes up about 40% of the nation’s electricity supply, according to the U.S. Most of the nation’s electricity still comes from fossil fuels, although the use of coal-which has some of the highest emissions-is rapidly shrinking and it now produces less electricity than renewables. Unless that electricity is produced from clean sources, gas bans will simply shift emissions rather than reducing them. Phasing out natural gas also will require an increase in electricity production and transmission as buildings consume more power for their heating systems. Laws to force electrification could stifle industry efforts to scale up that more climate-friendly option, he said. Lapato pointed to gas companies’ efforts to produce more renewable natural gas, which is methane captured from landfills, farms, and other sources. “When you start eliminating these options, you have to look at the cost implications to the homeowner.” “This is not really a climate solution,” said Daniel Lapato, senior director of state affairs with the American Gas Association, an advocacy group for the natural gas industry. Gas industry leaders and their political allies say the bans will raise construction costs and utility bills, while doing little to stop climate change. They say it’s a necessary step to curb future demand for fossil fuels and to limit the growth of climate change-causing carbon emissions. The New York City vote in December was by far the biggest victory for advocates of natural gas bans. New York legislative leaders did not respond to requests for comment about the prospects for Kavanagh’s bill in this year’s session. His efforts were bolstered late last month when council members in New York City voted to pass a similar ban, albeit on a slower timeline, by 2027. Kavanagh’s bill would mandate all-electric buildings after 2023, except in cases where local permitting authorities determine they’re not feasible, which may depend on the availability of equipment and labor. “If you build buildings that rely on fossil fuels, you are baking in very long-term needs.”įossil fuel combustion in buildings, mostly for heating, is responsible for about 13% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according to 2019 figures from the U.S. Brian Kavanagh, the Democrat who sponsored the natural gas phaseout legislation. “Growing the demand for natural gas is exactly what the world does not need right now,” said New York state Sen. Lawmakers in New York are considering the nation’s first statewide ban on natural gas connections in new buildings, following dozens of local governments that have passed similar policies in the past two years.īut as New York and other left-leaning states consider ways to limit natural gas and the greenhouse gas emissions it creates, 20 mostly Republican states have passed laws barring cities and counties from blocking gas hookups.
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