Does the Infrastructure Bill Spell Doom for Residential Natural Gas? | RealClearEnergy
"Like all massive bills, the Senate’s 2,700 page, trillion dollar-plus monstrosity of an
infrastructure package is filled with several regrettable big ticket items, including ones that will cost us dearly in the name of fighting climate change.
Even worse, buried deep in the bill are a great many relatively smaller provisions that are bad enough in their own right.
This includes measures allowing more federal control over state and local building codes that can further the Biden Administration goal of “appliance electrification” by
discouraging the use of natural gas in homes and businesses....At the local level, a number of “progressive” cities, starting with Berkeley, California in 2019,
outlawed natural gas hookups for new homes and businesses.
...If the infrastructure bill passes, the federal government will be able to influence state and local building codes so as to disfavor natural gas.
The bill doesn’t do this explicitly, but through carrots – it authorizes $225,000,000 in grant money for the purpose of “assisting standards-setting bodies.”
The language may sound innocent enough, for example grants to “enable sustained cost-effective implementation of updated building energy codes,” but in practice this means the only recipients will be those who play ball with the Biden climate agenda targeting natural gas...Read all.
