San Francisco Bans Natural Gas in New Home Construction in a State That Can’t Keep the Power On

California policymakers continue to enact bad energy policies. This time, the city of San Francisco joined nearly 40 other California towns in banning the use of natural gas in new buildings.

According to Utility Dive, the city’s Board of Supervisors passed legislation requiring new residential and commercial building construction to utilize all-electric power, starting with projects that file permits next year.

Like the Minneapolis City Council, which keeps doubling down on defunding the police department despite an enormous uptick in crime, the people of California don’t seem to be capable of helping themselves. San Francisco’s decision was couched as a bold step toward fighting climate change, but in the end, policies like these will only serve to make the city less resilient in the face of future challenges.

For example, District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman stated:

“San Francisco has taken climate change seriously for a long time and today — on the heels of yet another catastrophic fire season, a record string of unhealthier days, extreme heat waves, and even a day when the sun didn’t come up — we San Franciscans have an opportunity to make one more incremental but important move to help save our planet,” he told his colleagues in the meeting.

Banning the use of natural gas in new buildings won’t do anything to change the fact that poor forest management has led to a buildup of fuel in California’s forests, which is a big reason why fires have been so large.

Banning natural gas will also do nothing to prevent extreme heat, because greenhouse gases mix evenly in the atmosphere. This means California can’t get to climate heaven by being good little carbon cutters, their fate will ultimately be decided by China and India. In the meantime, they’re just making life harder for low-income families.

Prohibiting natural gas in new buildings will simply make Californian’s more dependent upon the state’s unreliable and expensive electricity. In mid-August, millions of Californian’s lost their electricity because demand for air conditioning surged while the sun was going down, rendering the Golden State’s solar panels useless for generating electricity. Increasing the demand for electricity when it is already in short supply is not a recipe for success.

California continues to circle the drain with their war on reliable, affordable energy. Will California policymakers ever come to their senses? The general populace will have to demand it. Until then, companies and people of means will continue to leave the state for saner states, as the Babylon Bee brilliantly spoofs below.