City of Berkeley Files Petition for Rehearing in CRA v. City of Berkeley 9th Circuit Case Regarding Authority to Ban Natural Gas Plumbing in New Construction

Posted on June 1, 2023 by Joe Kaatz

As the previous post discussed here, the City of Berkeley was granted until 5/31/23 to file a petition for rehearing en banc to the full 9th Circuit. Yesterday, the City of Berkeley filed its Petition for Rehearing En Banc.

This sets in motion a period for the 9th Circuit to review and grant or deny rehearing that can range from 21 days to more than 150 days depending on procedural action. To grant rehearing, a majority of the 29 sitting 9th Circuit Judges must vote for rehearing. If granted, the three judge panel opinion issued on 4/17/ 23 is rescinded with the en banc court taking full control of the case to issue a new opinion. The case would then go before a “limited en banc court” composed of 11 judges. The limited en banc court is composed of the chief judge and 10 judges selected by lot There is no defined time frame for the en banc to issue a new opinion.

The docket for this case can be accessed using Pacer. system to track the docket (Case No. 21-16278) and obtain filings. I am also happy to email the petition to any one interested (kaatzj-11@sandiego.edu).

Posted in All-electric, climate planning, Energy, Energy Efficiency, EPCA, Federal Preemption, GHG targets, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas, Litigation, Reach Codes | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Implications of CRA v. Berkeley on All-Electric Building Codes and Reach Codes in California

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Joe Kaatz

On April 17, 2023, a three judge panel for the Ninth Circuit issued an Opinion in California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley finding that the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) preempts a City of Berkeley’s ordinance that prohibits the installation of natural gas plumbing in new construction. This opinion is far reaching in its implication for local government authority to adopt municipal code language and amendments to state building codes in California, particularly where these amendments electrify end-uses that are “covered products” for consumer products and commercial products (e.g., hot water heaters, space heaters, driers, cooking appliances, etc.) regulated by the Department of Energy under the EPCA.

This is the first part of a series of blogs looking at the implications of this decision on local government and state authority to regulate natural gas use in buildings, natural gas infrastructure, and Clean Air Act (CAA) and related state air quality authority to regulate natural gas emissions from buildings.

Continue reading →
Posted in Air Pollution, All-electric, climate planning, Energy, Energy Efficiency, EPCA, Federal Preemption, GHG targets, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas, Reach Codes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Legislative Update: Review of Trends through the 2022 Summer Recess

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Joe Kaatz

This blog was drafted by Allie Maggart, a 2024 J.D./M.A. joint degree candidate at the University of San Diego School of Law and Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, with minimal edits.

As the legislative calendars move towards the end of the 2022 term with the next major deadline being whether bills reach the governor’s desk, the following provides an update on climate and energy legislative trends from the 2021-2022 sessions based on several interrelated topics: housing, wildfire, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation, energy demand response, and utilities regulation. The Legislature will reconvene on August 1, 2022, with August 31st being the last day for each house to pass bills. The Governor will then have until September 30th to sign or veto.

For a full list of active, enacted, and chaptered bills, please refer to our Legislative Tracking website.

Continue reading →

Posted in Air Pollution, CEQA, climate planning, CPUC, Energy, GHG targets, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas, Legislation, Renewable Energy, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coming to Terms with Climate Commitments: How difficult is carbon neutrality to achieve?

Posted on November 2, 2021 by Scott Anders
Source: https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/science/carbon-sequestration/biological/

In my last post on “coming to terms” with climate commitments, I focused on the terms and the meaning of various climate commitments. It is important to understand what they mean but it is equally important to understand the magnitude of the commitments. To make it easy, let’s look at California’s target to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible but no later than 2045, and then to achieve net negative emissions thereafter. I will focus only on the carbon neutrality part here. California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) defines carbon neutral as sources equaling sinks. And, even though the target specifies carbon, it covers all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So, once we have done everything we can to reduce or avoid GHGs, which is no small feat, we need to remove a quantity of emissions from the atmosphere equal to the GHGs that still remain. I will not be discussing the actual process of or options for removing emissions — that is a topic for the future — but rather the amount of the remaining emissions in California that will have to be canceled out by removals. This post provides estimates for remaining emissions at the state level and for the San Diego region.

Continue reading →
Posted in climate planning, GHG targets, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Coming to Terms with Climate Commitments: What Do They Mean?

Posted on October 21, 2021 by Scott Anders
Source: https://www.lsh.co.uk/explore/sustainability/2019/08/net-zero-carbon

From local governments to Fortune 500 companies, it seems everyone has a climate commitment these days. President Biden has a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050. California Governor Gavin Newsom asked the State’s Air Resources Board and Public Utilities Commission to evaluate pathways to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 – faster than contemplated in a previously adopted executive order. The City of Irvine adopted a resolution setting a goal of carbon neutrality by 2030. And companies are making similar commitments. Microsoft has pledged to be carbon negative by 2030 and to remove enough carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere to cancel out all its historical emissions by 2050. It is not clear that we have come to terms with what these commitments mean – both the language and what it will take to get there.

This post reviews key terms to help make sense of GHG emissions commitments. It will be helpful to anyone developing or interpreting climate commitments, or following the upcoming twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in November 2021 in Glasgow.

Continue reading →
Posted in climate planning, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas | 1 Comment

Legislative Update: Chaptered and Vetoed Bills

Posted on October 13, 2021 by Joe Kaatz

With the October 10th deadline passing for the Governor to act on bills approved by the Legislature, the following represents the conclusion of tracked bills. There is still an option for the Legislature to override a veto and the vetoed bills will be tracked until the time period to override ends.

Major trends from this session include a wide range of wildfire related bills, carbon sequestration, firm renewable energy resources and offshore wind, waste reduction and recycling, oil and gas well issues and mitigation, CEQA streamlining, and mitigation of and adaptation to climate impacts.

You can access the list of bills here.

Posted in Air Pollution, CEQA, climate planning, CPUC, Energy, Energy Efficiency, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas, Legislation, Renewable Energy, Transportation, Vehicle Miles Traveled, VMT, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Legislative Update: Passed Bills Enrolled to the Governor for the 2021 Session

Posted on September 17, 2021 by Joe Kaatz

The deadline to pass bills occurred on September 10, 2021 for the current 2021 session. The Governor has until October 10th, 2021 to sign or veto these bills. You can link to our Legislative Database to view relevant bills from this session that we will continue to track. Several trends emerge from this session from the approximately 60 relevant bills enrolled by the legislative deadline.

There continues to be a major emphasis on wildfire planning and mitigation as the state continues to see consistent wildfires each year that burn large acreage and threaten life, safety, and property. How to decarbonize the transportation sector remains a major issue of contention as well as exploration of various ways to address emissions and infrastructure in this sector. Offshore wind development and electric generation from bioenergy facilities are also major actions this session. Finally, the battle over how to implement greenhouse gas emission (GHG) capture or removal from the atmosphere continues.

Continue reading →
Posted in Air Pollution, CEQA, climate planning, CPUC, Energy, Energy Efficiency, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas, Legislation, Renewable Energy, Transportation, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Rise of Reach Codes

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Marc Steele

Last week, the California Energy Commission (CEC) adopted energy efficiency standards to be included in the 2022 state building standards (Title 24, Part 6). The new energy code will further increase building energy efficiency and reduce emissions from California buildings when they go into effect January 1, 2023. But what will these new state standards mean for the many local governments across the state that have adopted or are in the process of adopting reach codes that go beyond what the state is currently requiring?

Continue reading →
Posted in climate planning, Energy, Energy Efficiency, GHGs, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reduce, Preserve, Remove: A Framework for Climate Action

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Scott Anders

Sometimes we get so focused on our silos that we don’t see connections across silos or the broader context. At EPIC we spend a lot of time working on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but during a recent project on carbon offset credits I learned more about the role of natural and working lands in California’s climate strategy. Add to that the recent activity related to carbon dioxide removal, particularly engineered solutions, and I began to see a more complete picture of climate action.

In hopes of making the complex work of climate policy a bit more digestible, consider a three-pronged framework for climate action: reduce emissions, preserve existing carbon stocks, and remove carbon from the atmosphere. This is nothing new. It basically summarizes California’s climate strategy, but I had to connect the dots to see it. This post summarizes each element of this framework.

Continue reading →
Posted in climate planning, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

AB 1139: Reforms to California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) program and Net Energy Metering (NEM)

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Joe Kaatz

On February 18, 2021, Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez introduced AB 1139 to amend Public Utilities Code Section 739.1, repeal Sections 2827 and 2827.7, and repeal and add Section 2827. These amendments, repeals, and additions address reforms to the CARE program that set specific discount rate ranges as well as a NEM reform that seeks to: 1) eliminate any cost-shift between NEM and non-NEM customers; and 2) change the compensation received for energy exported to the grid under a new NEM tariff to the hourly wholesale market rate applicable at the time of the export and the location of the customer self-generator. The bill would also expand access to renewable energy for CARE customers in several ways. The following discusses both the changes to CARE and NEM based on the bills April 8, 2021 amendments. Additional amendments are expected if this bill moves through committee and each chamber. If signed into law, this bill would impact the in process CPUC R.20-08-020: Successor Tariff to Net Energy Metering proceeding.

Continue reading →
Posted in CPUC, Energy, Legislation, Renewable Energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment