Trump Administration Sues Morgan Hill, Petaluma Over Local Natural Gas Bans

The Trump administration sued the Bay Area cities of Morgan Hill and Petaluma on Monday to block their bans on natural gas infrastructure in new buildings.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claimed the local decarbonization measures deny consumers reliable and affordable energy while undermining “American energy dominance.”

Morgan Hill adopted its natural gas prohibition in late 2019, effective for all new building permit applications starting in March 2020. Petaluma followed suit in May 2021 by adopting an all-electric ordinance that expanded the ban to include “substantial building alterations.”

Both cities left specific exceptions for the use of portable propane appliances in outdoor cooking and heating areas. Despite some carve-outs, U.S. attorneys argued that these local ordinances violate a 1975 law granting the federal government the sole authority to set “energy use” standards for products such as stoves and water heaters.

By banning the fuel gas piping “in pursuit of electrification,” the government argued, the cities “undermine and conflict with” federal energy policy.

“The natural gas bans not only impose crushing costs on California residents but are also unlawful,” the formal complaint stated.

Morgan Hill City Attorney Donald Larkin told KQED the city has already shifted its practices following a 2024 ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That case, California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley, stopped Berkeley’s similar 2019 ordinance banning natural gas hookups and established that local building codes cannot bypass federal energy laws.

Other California cities, including Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz, have already moved to fully repeal or suspend their gas bans following the Berkeley decision.

Larkin noted that Morgan Hill has complied with federal standards as interpreted by recent court decisions and has not denied permits based on the 2019 ordinance since the Berkeley ruling.

“While we are still reviewing the complaint, this lawsuit appears to be an unnecessary effort to require the City to follow laws with which the City is already in compliance,” Larkin said in a statement.

Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner echoed this, stating that city staff have affirmed the ordinance has not been enforced to deny gas infrastructure to any project. However, Turner expressed concern over California’s “overly aggressive push” to electrify homes already plumbed with gas, calling the policy “divorced from reality.”

“Homeowners are being pushed toward expensive appliance conversions while PG&E, already unable to deliver reliable, affordable power, struggles to meet existing demand,” Turner said. “Federal leadership should be stepping in to slow or eliminate unrealistic timelines and protect communities from mandates that outpace the very systems required to sustain them.”

The federal case relies on the 1975 law, the U.S. Energy Policy and Conservation Act, to argue that a building code prohibiting gas pipes is effectively a ban on the appliances themselves. This builds on the 2024 Berkeley ruling, which established that cities cannot indirectly block the use of gas appliances by cutting off the infrastructure needed for them to function.

U.S. lawyers argued that allowing these local bans to stand would create a “patchwork of inconsistent regulations” that would burden manufacturers and distributors nationwide. They claim that Congress intentionally created a uniform national standard to prevent exactly this type of local intervention.

Petaluma Mayor Kevin McDonnell called the lawsuit “very sudden and unexpected” in a statement and referred all further comments to the city attorney. In a follow-up statement, city officials echoed Morgan Hill’s defense, calling the legal action an “unnecessary effort” to compel compliance with a law the city is already following.

Officials stated that Petaluma has not enforced its 2021 electrification regulations since the 9th Circuit ruling and has not denied any permit applications based on those rules.

“In any event, the City has observed that developers have generally opted voluntarily to install electric utilities,” the city said in a statement. Like Morgan Hill, Petaluma officials say they only became aware of the complaint through press inquiries and maintain that the litigation is unnecessary.