Appeals Court Pumps Brakes on Berkeley’s Gas Stove Ban

Blue flames rise from the burner of a natural gas stove in Orange, Calif., June 11, 2003. (David McNew/Getty Images)

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals snuffed out a California city’s ban on new natural gas hookups on April 17, handing restaurant owners and cooks their first victory over the national climate-action movement.

Judge Patrick Bumatay reversed a district court’s dismissal of a California Restaurant Association’s lawsuit alleging federal law overruled the City of Berkeley’s ban on installing natural gas pipes in newly constructed buildings.

Bumatay found the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act trumps city laws concerning the energy use of many natural gas appliances, including those used in households and restaurants.

“By its plain text and structure, [the federal act’s] preemption provision encompasses building codes that regulate natural gas use by covered products,” Bumatay wrote in his opinion. “And by preventing such appliances from using natural gas, the new building code does exactly that.”

In 2019, Berkeley became the first U.S. city to ban gas stove hook-ups. The ordinance took effect Jan. 1, 2020. The move has inspired similar bans in Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and other progressive cities.

Berkeley’s ordinance attempted to bypass the federal law by enacting a new building code that prohibited installing natural gas pipes in new buildings, rendering gas appliances useless, according to Bumatay.

Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain and Judge Miller Baker agreed with Bumatay’s ruling.

Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Faiz Brown told The Epoch Times the city was “evaluating the decision and its next steps.”

The ruling could be appealed, according to a statement by Matt Vespa, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Earthjustice, the Associated Press reported.

“As we face a climate and air quality crisis from coast to coast, it is vital that cities and states maintain all legal pathways to protect public health, cut climate emissions, and increase safety by addressing pollution from buildings, and we’ll continue to fight to ensure this authority is preserved,” Vespa said in a statement.

The association, which represents nearly 22,000 restaurant locations in the state, applauded the ruling on Monday.

“The Ninth Circuit has unanimously affirmed the central issue in this case: local ordinances cannot override federal law,” the association’s president Jot Candie said in a release. “Natural gas appliances are crucial for restaurants to operate effectively and efficiently, as they allow for a wide variety of cuisines and innovations in the restaurant industry.”

Attorneys with the association also commended the ruling on Monday, saying in a statement, “At stake was the [restaurant association] members’ ability to conduct business in the state of California, which puts not only the future of restaurants at risk, but also the vibrant culture and the jobs that those restaurants bring to the area.”

The lawsuit challenged the practice of banning gas stoves in cities across California, the attorneys said.

The California Restaurant Association—the largest nonprofit statewide restaurant trade group in the nation—claimed its members included restaurants that relied on gas for cooking particular types of food, and for heating space and water, for backup power, and affordable power.

Without it, they would “be unable to prepare any of their specialties without natural gas,” the association said in the complaint, according to attorneys.

A lower court dismissed the complaint in July 2021, disagreeing on the restaurant association’s interpretation of federal energy law.

Banning gas stoves sparked national backlash in January when the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission proposed a national gas-stove ban. That was quickly squashed following a firestorm of public and political outcry from Democrats and Republicans.

According to the Consumer Energy Alliance, an energy policy advocacy group, most American households rely on natural gas for cooking, cleaning, or heating their homes. About 59.5 million households rely on natural gas for heat, the organization reported.