Empire State Of Energy

New York is banning fossil fuels in new construction, a major step towards future decarbonization, but the MAGA trolls and the courts are going to have a field day with this, and  I give it less than 50% odds that it survives the inevitable SCOTUS challenge.

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 help reshape how Americans heat and cook in their homes in the coming decades.

Late Tuesday, the New York legislature approved a $229 billion state budget that will prohibit natural gas hookups and other fossil fuels in most new homes and other construction, a major victory for climate activists. The move, which will likely face a court challenge from the fossil fuel industry, will serve as a test of states’ power to ban fossil fuels outright, rather than simply encouraging developers to build low-carbon buildings.

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.

Dozens of cities and counties have adopted bans on gas hookups in new buildings, part of a national movement to cut emissions from homes and businesses that account for about 11 percent of the nation’s carbon pollution and 30 percent of New York state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As the restrictions spread across the country, they become a new front in the culture wars. Earlier 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 gas flared.

But Democrats, who control the New York Senate and Assembly, decided to press ahead, despite the partisan warfare. 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.

New York’s new law “is an indication that this policy is definitely building momentum and becoming more mainstream, in particular within the Democratic Party,” said Abe Scarr, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, a consumer group that’s part of a coalition trying to build support for a similar ban in Chicago.

 

So, we'll see if this works or not. I mean, eventually we're going to stop using fossil fuels because we'll either ban them, or none of us will be left to argue about it.