Amid power outages, city OKs ban on natural gas

Even as PG&E moves forward with preemptive power shutoffs that are leaving thousands of Bay Area customers in the dark and cold, San Jose leaders and officials in other cities are pushing policies that will — at least for now — force residents to rely heavily on the embattled utility company.

On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council approved an ordinance to ban natural gas in favor of electricity in many new homes, and Mayor Sam Liccardo testified before congressional leaders in Washington about the environmental benefits of electric vehicles. Menlo Park and Berkeley also have voted to restrict natural gas use.

Taken together, the actions signal a push by Bay Area lawmak

ers against the Trump administration’s attempt to roll back environmental regulations.

But some people have raised concerns that it could force residents to depend on a utility company whose leaders have said shutoffs could be the norm for the next decade.

“Going all electric makes us even more reliant on PG&E,” said San Jose Councilman Johnny Khamis.

Khamis, who supported the ordinance with unease, said that during the previous round of shutoffs, “people in my district who had gas-fired stoves and gaspowered water heaters had the ability to take hot showers and cook.”

Myron Crawford with Berg & Berg Developers submitted a lengthy letter to city officials suggesting that banning natural gas would be expensive and misguided.

But others, including Liccardo and Councilman Lan Diep, have said cities need to prepare for the future.

“If we wait a decade for PG&E to address its chronic under investment in the electric grid, residents will have much bigger questions — and much angrier ones — than merely whether their electric stove would have worked if it were gas,” Liccardo said in an email.

“We will be bracing for severe risks to public safety and public health. Simply, we must be able to both walk and chew gum — that is, we must both make our grid more resilient, and also dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions — because we have no margin for failure in either endeavor.”

Diep agreed. “From a governing standpoint,” Diep said, “we want to build a city for tomorrow.”

PG&E’s actions do concern him, Diep added, but moving away from natural gas will “reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.”

And Diane Bailey, executive director of Menlo Spark, a nonprofit promoting climate neutrality, pointed out that newer homes with natural gas often require electricity to function properly.

Still, the vote comes as the Bay Area is expected to be hit with below freezing temperatures this week, and PG&E is cutting power to residents for the fourth time this month. Many people may be shivering in their homes with no other source of warmth.

With dry weather and high winds, the company hopes to avoid sparking wildfires like the one now blazing through Sonoma County.

Liccardo, who has come out against the Trump administration on everything from immigration to economics, struck much the same tone as his council colleagues, and several environmental activists who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, during his testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment about car emission standards.

Quoting San Jose playwright Luis Valdez, Liccardo said, “The future belongs to those who can imagine it.”

California and several major automakers reached

a deal this summer to make more fuel-efficient cars.

But the Trump administration has moved to revoke a waiver that lets the state set such stringent emission rules, a move Liccardo and others think is political posturing that will promote pollution.

“For a half-century, the California waiver has enabled Silicon Valley — and 130 million Americans in 14 states — to imagine a future different from the reality of deadly smog that choked Californians for decades,” Liccardo told congressional leaders.

The mayor touted the San Jose metro area’s adoption of electric vehicles, which tops all other U.S. cities, and urged Washington lawmakers to get out of the way.

“In the words of the esteemed philosopher Kermit the Frog,” Liccardo said, “‘it’s not easy being green.’ The federal government shouldn’t make it harder.”

The mayor also said recently that to protect San Jose residents from the volatility of shutoffs, he wants the city to consider moving away from PG&E in the future, possibly by developing a city-owned utility that could create independent power systems known as microgrids.

Apple’s Cupertino campus, a Kaiser center in Richmond and several fire stations in Fremont run off independent power systems.

Other cities are considering such changes. In a bid ultimately rejected by the company, San Francisco recently offered to buy local power lines from PG&E. Palo Alto and Santa Clara already have their own utilities.

But San Jose residents

aren’t likely to see a switch anytime soon, with energy experts saying getting a microgrid up and running in the nation’s 10th largest city could take decades and millions of dollars.

Still, Linda HutchinsKnowles, with the climate advocacy group Mothers Out Front, said the increasing shutdowns and fires signal a climate emergency that demands innovation.

“You don’t,” she said, “continue business as usual.”