REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Update on Approaches to Replace the Reach Code Gas Ban and Meet the Climate Action Playbook Gameplan 2028, Move 2.N (Information Only)
Report
BACKGROUND
In 2006, the State Legislature passed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which created a comprehensive, multi-year program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California. It was updated in 2022 (AB1279) and encourages local governments to adopt goals to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by:
* 15% below 1990 levels by 2020,
* 40% below 1990 levels in 2030, and
* 85% below 1990 levels by 2045.
Sunnyvale adopted its first Climate Action Plan in 2014 to provide strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; achieved its 2020 GHG emissions reduction target. The plan was comprehensively updated and renamed the Climate Action Playbook (Playbook) in 2019 with updated goals to reduce greenhouse emissions by 56% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 in alignment with State goals in place at the time.
The Playbook was updated and the short-term workplan, Game Plan 2028, was adopted in June 2024. One Playbook update was to align the Playbook's carbon neutrality target with the State's new target.
To support the 2019 Playbook goals of reducing GHG emissions by minimizing the use of natural gas, the Council adopted an ordinance, sometimes referred to as the Reach Codes, on December 1, 2020, to require all-electric construction for new and substantially reconstructed buildings. While there are limited exceptions to the all-electric requirement for non-residential projects, there are no exceptions for new or substantially reconstructed residential projects.
In November 2019, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California contesting the City of Berkeley's natural gas ban for most new buildings, arguing that the Federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), a federal statute that ...
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