MARTINEZ — Contra Costa County officials will stop enforcing building codes that require most new buildings to be all-electric — at least for now.on natural gas in new construction, ruling that cities do not have the authority to prohibit the installation of natural gas plumbing in buildings.
to natural gas bans, including Mountain View, Palo Alto and Santa Clara. Amy Turner, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said that’s because specific exceptions have been carved out of the federal law to allow cities to add requirements or strong incentives for all-electric new construction into building and energy codes — an alternative to banning gas piping, itself.
On Tuesday, the board asked staff to report on alternatives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and report back to the county’s