The Trump administration is suing the city of Petaluma, along with Morgan Hill in the South Bay, asking a U.S. District Court judge to block the cities from enforcing their bans on natural gas infrastructure in new buildings.
The lawsuit puts Petaluma, which adopted an “all-electric ordinance” in May 2021, front and center in the national debate over clean energy — and in the breach of America’s political divide, as evidenced by language in the government’s complaint.
“From the day President Trump took office, his Administration has prioritized cutting energy costs for all Americans, restoring consumer freedom, and unleashing American energy dominance,” the document reads.
“Sadly standing in the way of that progress, many states and localities have enacted ‘energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security,’” it continues, citing one of Trump’s executive orders.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, refers to the city ordinances as “radical measures.”
Petaluma was among a number of California cities and counties that made a push toward all-electric building projects, following the city of Berkeley’s lead in 2019. They included Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and Sonoma County.
Napa County approved a building code that encourages all-electric new homes, though it stopped short of an outright ban.
But the California Restaurant Association mounted a legal challenge to Berkeley’s ordinance, and a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel sided with the industry group in April 2024, ruling that the bans were an attempt to override the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, a federal law that sets national standards for how appliances use energy.
Following that decision, most jurisdictions suspended or softened their natural gas prohibitions, or ceased enforcement.
Petaluma and Morgan Hill, in the estimation of U.S. attorneys, failed to comply. And neither city asked the U.S. Department of Energy for permission to enforce their rules, according to the federal lawsuit.
The complaint asks the court to declare the two municipal ordinances invalid and permanently stop the cities from enforcing them. It also seeks compensation for legal fees.
Petaluma received no prior demands or notifications from the government, according to city attorney Eric Danly. He and others didn’t learn of the lawsuit until they received a call from the Reuters news agency, just before the start of a Monday council meeting, Danly said. The city still hadn’t been served a copy of the complaint by late Tuesday afternoon.
The administration’s legal effort caught the city by surprise.
“We have not been enforcing the regulations, in light of the Berkeley ruling,” Danly said. “We’re obligated to comply with federal law. And we have been. It’s just unnecessary. The suit seeks to compel us to comply with a federal law we’ve been complying with.”
After checking with city staff, he noted, he is confident Petaluma has not denied any new projects based on natural gas supply. In fact, the city has approved several projects that include gas infrastructure.
Mayor Kevin McDonnell deferred to Danly, but offered a brief comment.
“This is certainly sudden and unexpected,” McDonnell said over the phone. “It’s obviously an important issue. And it’s funny that Petaluma is attracting national attention on this.”
Danly said it’s too early to have a sense of the city’s likely legal defense. But Matt Vespa, a senior attorney with the legal nonprofit Earthjustice, said the first question to be sorted out is whether the federal government even has standing to pursue this case. Earthjustice is currently intervening in cases that include New York state, New York City, a local government in Illinois and a Los Angeles-area air quality district.
The lawsuit against Petaluma and Morgan Hill is a little different, Vespa acknowledged. In the other cases, the plaintiff is a trade association. This is the first time the Trump administration has directly sued over natural gas restrictions, according to Vespa.
And the defendants in the previous cases, because they aren’t in the Ninth Circuit, insist they’re not bound to follow the decision in the Berkeley case, as Petaluma is.
Still, Vespa said, the new lawsuit makes no sense. Even as Berkeley and other municipalities have pulled back, California is moving full speed ahead on encouraging all-electric construction. The state has identified electric heat pumps as baseline appliances, for example, and ended subsidies to gas-fed homes.
By 2023, according to Vespa, over 70% of new construction in the state was fully electric. And California’s newest building code, which pushes the envelope even more, just went into effect Jan 1.
“So you already have this backdrop of very strong state codes,” Vespa said. “And it’s cheaper to build electric. Now they’re coming at these small towns. It doesn’t have any practical impact. I don’t see any behavior changing because of these suits.”
He characterized the federal action as “one more gratuitous gift to the fossil fuel industry.”
At least 20 local jurisdictions in California are currently pursuing ways to encourage or require electrification in existing and new buildings, according to an ordinance tracker created by the Building Decarbonization Coalition. Most of them are in the Bay Area, including Marin County and the cities of San Rafael and Corte Madera.
Natural gas use represents about 18% of the total emissions in Sonoma County, but it makes up more than three quarters of the energy emissions in buildings, according to a greenhouse gas inventory produced by the county’s Regional Climate Protection Authority.
The Trump government focuses on other aspects of the debate.
Bans on natural gas hookups “deny consumers reliable, resilient, and affordable energy, as well as the use of commonplace gas appliances for cooking, heating, and other household needs,” according to U.S. attorneys.
Natural gas, they argue, is often the most affordable and most efficient energy source for residents and businesses — “outperforming electric on both expense and lifecycle emissions.”
Petaluma’s all-electric ordinance, which took effect in June 2021, added a chapter to the city’s municipal code. Ordinance 2775 read, “Newly constructed buildings and substantial building alterations must satisfy the definition of an all-electric building and/or have an all-electric design, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.”
All-electric buildings were defined as those that use electrical hookup for all space heating, water heating (including pools and spas), cooking and clothes drying appliances, and have no natural gas or propane plumbing installed in the building.
The ordinance offered a number of exceptions, including modest additions and alterations to existing buildings, outdoor propane flames and backup power for buildings that house essential services. It also included a discretionary “infeasibility waiver.”
None of that was enough to assuage the administration, which has moved aggressively against numerous environmental and climate initiatives since Trump took office nearly a year ago.
The David-vs.-Goliath caricature of this latest battle was highlighted in the lawsuit. Everyone knows the White House is Washington, D.C. But the government’s legal filing mistakenly placed Petaluma in Marin County.
You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post.
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