North Carolina has joined what is fast becoming a national debate over building electrification and efforts by the natural gas industry to forestall such changes via laws ensuring “consumer energy choice.”

Introduced March 3, House Bill 220 would prohibit cities and counties across the state from enacting building codes or other regulations that promote building electrification — for heat, hot water and cooking — by banning natural gas hookups in new buildings. The bill received a favorable vote from the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee on March 16 and is now headed to the House Commerce Committee.

Speaking before the energy and committee, Rep. Dean Arp (R), a bill sponsor, acknowledged that no such bans are currently on the books anywhere in the state, prompting Rep. Kelly Alexander (D) to question the need for the bill. It would be, Alexander said, a “solution to a problem that you admitted that North Carolina does not have.”

“Energy policy is a state issue,” Arp countered. Passing pre-emptive legislation protecting consumer choice “absolutely clarifies that before it becomes a problem,” he said.

North Carolina municipalities should not adopt these “California-style building electrification measures,” Arp said, referring to bans on natural gas hookups in new home construction in dozens of cities across that state. The California Energy Commission is currently considering whether to include a natural gas ban in an update of the state’s already rigorous building efficiency code, which would go into effect in 2023.

The natural gas industry has responded with a campaign to promote laws ensuring natural gas hookups remain an option for builders and consumers. A March 2020 presentation by the American Gas Association, first reported by NPR, promoted pre-emptive legislation like HB 220 as a key part of its strategy to “keep natural gas as an integral part of a clean energy future.”

At present, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee have passed such consumer choice laws, and 15 more, including North Carolina, are considering them, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Rep. Pricey Harrison (D) pointed to the AGA connection in her opposition to the bill. “Buildings are responsible for 12% of greenhouse gas emissions,” she said, citing a figure from EPA. “I think this is bad policy, and I would urge my colleagues to vote against it.”

Whether Gov. Roy Cooper (D) would sign the bill, if it passed in both houses of the General Assembly, is uncertain. Cooper has committed the state to reducing its GHG emissions 40% below 2005 levels by 2025, a goal which includes a 40% improvement in state building energy efficiency.

But, Arp said, the independent North Carolina Energy Policy Council, which advises the governor and legislature, supported consumer choice legislation in its biennial report on state energy policy. “Using legislation adopted in Tennessee and Arizona as examples, local governmental entities should not ban customer energy choices,” the report says. “The North Carolina General Assembly should not allow local governmental entities to make such decisions, thereby depriving citizens of the ability to select their energy source.”

“I believe that this is a not a local issue and is not something that is constraining,” Arp concluded. “I thought it was actually pretty straightforward and makes clear the point that state energy policy is state energy policy and can’t be abridged by local input outside … of processes we already have.”