Big Green, Inc. went from "no one is banning your gas stoves" to "it's good they are banning your gas stoves" to "how dare the courts block our illegal gas stove ban."
Sacramento Bee (3/25/24) reports: "The City of Berkeley has settled a lawsuit by the California Restaurant Association to repeal that city’s first-in-the-nation ban on gas hookups in new construction, dealing a final blow to more than a hundred similar measures in California cities including Sacramento. Berkeley’s 2019 gas ban became a cornerstone in a national battle over the future of fossil gas in buildings as dozens of other municipal and county governments followed suit — including Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. The Friday announcement comes after a federal appeals court declined to rehear the case on Berkeley’s ordinance that a panel of judges struck down last year for preempting federal energy law. In a press release, the Sacramento-based California Restaurant Association said Berkeley will take steps to formally repeal the ordinance as part of the settlement. Until the city repeals the measure in its legislative process, it will not enforce the measure...When Berkeley passed its first-in-the-nation ban on gas hookups for most new buildings in July 2019, dozens of cities followed. At least 76 California cities passed similar ordinances by the start of 2023...Matt Vespa, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said California is still on track to cleaner, healthier homes. The state, he noted, recently committed to ensuring that heat pumps make up 65% of residential heating and cooling sales by 2030. 'The City of Berkeley deserves a lot of credit for acting quickly in 2019 to protect its residents from health-harming air pollution from gas appliances,' Vespa said. 'While it’s disappointing to see today’s news, it should always be remembered that SoCalGas helped bankroll the law firm representing the California Restaurant Association in this fight.'"
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"Electricity prices are soaring across the country because utilities are shutting down low-cost, depreciated power plants that provide the most reliable and affordable electricity to the families and businesses that rely upon it. Ratepayers would benefit most from the continued operation of these existing power plants, but the onslaught of state policies mandating carbon-free electricity, federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, and the current incentive structure of monopoly utilities mean many, if not most, of these power plants will be shut down in the coming decades."
– Isaac Orr,
Center of the American Experiment
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