The extremist, left-wingers running the City of Berkeley is surrendering and will repeal its first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas after a series of legal challenges.
The chief opponent that the city could not beat in court appears to have been the California Restaurant Association.
The group reached a settlement with the city that will entail the repealing of its 2019 ban on the installation of new gas lines into any building in the city and to stop enforcing it until the city council is able to complete the effort to repeal the law.
Per Just The News:
“Climate change must be addressed, but piecemeal policies at the local level like bans on natural gas piping in new buildings or all-electric ordinances, which are preempted by federal energy laws, are not the answer,” said CRA president and CEO Jot Condie in a statement. “The ban was passed with a disregard for available cooking technologies and ultimately for small businesses in the community that rely on gas-burning equipment for their cuisines.”
After an earlier federal district court dismissed CRA’s case, CRA appealed to the 9th Circuit Court, which unanimously ruled Berkeley’s ban violates the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which allows users to use “covered products in their homes, kitchens, and businesses. Berkeley appealed that ruling, which the 9th Circuit voted not to rehear.
Following Berkeley’s ban, over 70 cities across California, including Los Angeles and San Francisco adopted similar ordinances. With Berkley and CRA’s settlement to put the case on pause as the city stops enforcement and takes steps to repeal the ordinance in the coming months, it’s likely the state’s other cities will have to take a similar course of action.
The left has been working to destroy the natural gas industry for years. And these bans are the left’s biggest success to date.
But this is also one of the first defeats. Let’s hope it will be just the first shoe to fall.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
