Gas Ban Monitor: All-electric building rules advance coast to coast in 2022

This article is the second of a two-part series on building gas bans and all-electric codes that advanced in the second half of 2022. The first part can be found here.

The Pacific Northwest's push to restrict natural gas use in buildings notched more gains in the second half of 2022, and local governments from Michigan to Massachusetts also moved toward requiring all-electric construction.

The spread of gas bans to new areas demonstrated how the policy has matured and evolved since the San Francisco Bay Area popularized the building decarbonization strategy in 2019. In 2022, it took root in Midwestern and Rocky Mountain communities such as Ann Arbor, Mich., and Crested Butte, Colo., as well as East Coast areas, including Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County, Md.

As cities adopt new approaches to mandating electrification, opponents have adapted to organize against the growing variety of gas bans. Even as state-level efforts to prohibit gas bans stalled in 2022, local challenges have delayed gas bans in places like Eugene, Ore.; Washington, D.C.; and New Jersey.

Gas ban movement grinds forward

The Milwaukie, Ore., City Council on Dec. 6, 2022, adopted a resolution directing city staff to develop code updates that prohibit new fossil fuel connections to residential buildings beginning on March 1, 2024. The resolution, adopted on a 3-2 vote, also directed staff to consult with commercial and industrial building owners and propose decarbonization regulations for these building types by June 30, 2025.

In a second resolution, councilors directed the city manager to install electric building equipment in city-owned buildings when natural gas-powered assets burn out, as well as when Milwaukie finances, substantially renovates, donates or sells city-owned property. The resolution, which drew unanimous support, also ordered the city manager to inventory gas equipment in city-owned facilities, evaluate the feasibility of converting to decarbonized equipment and submit preliminary recommendations by June 30, 2024.

The council has been following the lead of local lawmakers in Eugene, Ore., who directed city staff to develop a gas ban for new residential buildings in July 2022. The Eugene City Council held a public hearing on a proposed ordinance on Nov. 21, 2022, but did not take any action during a contentious meeting packed with opponents and supporters alike.

In Washington, the State Building Code Council voted on Nov. 4, 2022, to require electric heat pumps in new residential construction. The council included a heat pump mandate in an update to the state's commercial building code in April 2022. Representatives from Olympia and Tacoma, Wash., told S&P Global Commodity Insights that they were waiting for the building code updates to go into effect in July 2023 before they took action to restrict gas use in new buildings.

Seattle and Shoreline, Wash., have already prohibited fossil fuel and electric resistance systems for space and water heating in most new commercial buildings, including large apartment complexes. Lawmakers in the cities' home county and Washington state's largest, King County, voted unanimously on Aug. 23, 2022, to adopt a similar update to its building code, which applies to all unincorporated areas. The provision, which also applies to whole heating system replacements in existing commercial buildings, would essentially require electric heat pumps for space and water heating, with some exceptions.

New frontiers for bans

The city planning commission in Ann Arbor, Mich., in November 2022 introduced a proposal to prohibit gas use in new construction through an update to its unified development code, which governs zoning.

The commission held a pair of meetings on the amendment — originally proposed to go into effect Jan. 1 — and intended to further study and consider the proposal through the winter. Building electrification is one of six core strategies that the city is prioritizing to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.

A bill to prohibit local governments from adopting gas bans died in committee in the Michigan Senate after passing on a mostly party-line vote in the House of Representatives in September 2022. The bill had little support among Democrats, who flipped both the Senate and House in November 2022 elections. The bill's failure to advance marked the latest defeat for several gas ban preemption bills across the country.

In November 2022, Montgomery County, Md., became the first jurisdiction in the state to pass a measure that will restrict gas use in most new buildings. Montgomery County Council legislation required the county executive to include an all-electric construction standard in the building code by Dec. 31, 2026 — a date that aligns with nearby Washington, D.C.'s timeline for a similar policy.

Washington, D.C.'s Construction Codes Coordinating Board voted in May 2022 to require all-electric construction in an update to the city's residential building code. However, a similar amendment to its commercial code ran into headwinds in October 2022. The updates require approval by the District of Columbia Council, which supports the changes; lawmakers passed an ordinance in July 2022 that ordered code officials to implement a net-zero energy standard for new commercial construction by Jan. 1, 2027.

Headwinds and tailwinds on the East Coast

The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources on Dec. 23, 2022, launched a pilot program that will allow up to 10 towns and cities to prohibit gas use in new construction, following a nearly three-year campaign to advance the policy. The department designed the program to work with a new specialized stretch energy code that favors building electrification.

In the Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2050 released Dec. 21, 2022, former Gov. Charlie Baker's administration advocated for using a clean heat standard to encourage electrification and other solutions to decarbonize building heating. The Baker Administration's Commission on Clean Heat recommended the clean heat standard in its final report issued Nov. 30, 2022. The policy would help the state hit greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets by requiring fossil fuel distributors to deploy strategies to help customers reduce gas, propane and heating oil consumption.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced on Oct. 3, 2022, that his administration would launch a Clean Buildings Working Group. The stakeholder group will develop building decarbonization policy and legislation recommendations for the state, which must achieve an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2006 levels by 2050.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, or DEP, on Dec. 2, 2022, withdrew a proposed rule that would have prohibited many commercial and industrial facilities from installing fossil fuel boilers. The department proposed the regulation as an "initial step" toward reducing emissions from the state's building stock, its second-biggest source of greenhouse gas pollution, but the policy ran into opposition.

The rule would have affected thousands of schools and universities, apartment complexes and retail and industrial spaces. DEP "anticipates holding stakeholder sessions to discuss the regulation of boilers in 2023," an agency spokesperson told Commodity Insights in an email.

In neighboring New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul backed final recommendations by the state's Climate Action Council to begin prohibiting gas hookups in new buildings starting in 2025 and restricting the sale of new gas heating systems and appliances beginning in 2030.

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