Amy Turner writes…
Recent efforts by states to preempt local greenhouse gas or energy requirements have not only stymied climate action, they have also been wielded in an undemocratic way that undermines equity in climate policymaking.
State preemption of local law is nothing new, but its impact on procedural equity and distributional equity in city climate law merits critical examination. Procedural equity describes the process by which a policy is developed – who provided input, were frontline community voices elevated (or not), how were or weren’t those who stood to gain or lose from a proposed policy sought out and consulted? Distributional equity gets at outcomes – in short, does the policy benefit or cause harm to underrepresented communities or residents? Some efforts to enact state legislation preempting local initiatives can undercut procedural equity by preventing affected communities from playing a meaningful role in policy formation. And they could lead to less equitable distributional outcomes as well, both by excluding the voices that could raise substantive concerns and by enacting policies with unequitable impacts.
Two ongoing efforts to preempt local requirements aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings are instructive: the battle over natural gas bans and the proposed revision of New York City’s Local Law 97. The first is overt, blunt and wide-ranging, with state-wide preemption laws drafted so broadly that they could inhibit many local policies, including unintended or unforeseen ones. The second is far more tailored to the specifics of one particular local law, and was hidden from public view in a 4,000-page budget bill. What both have in common, however, is that they feature special interest groups advocating for statewide preemption laws aimed at city climate action through government officials that do not directly represent the locality or localities at which the preemption is aimed, nor the people who live there.
State Preemption of Local Natural Gas Bans: I’ve written on this blog in the past about the several state legislatures that have passed or are considering legislation that would preempt local building construction requirements based on the type of utility service that serves the building. These local construction requirements, which are colloquially referred to as “all-electric construction requirements” or “natural gas bans,” either prohibit most natural gas connections in new buildings or require that new buildings use only electric heating and cooling. In so doing, they aim to eliminate or greatly limit fossil fuel use in new buildings, which both reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector (a top contributor to emissions in virtually all U.S. cities) and prevents investment in new natural gas distribution infrastructure. The movement to preempt local natural gas bans has only intensified since that writing, with four states now having passed a “ban-on-bans” via the state legislature and another dozen considering it. These statewide preemption laws are driven by a well-organized natural gas industry campaign, which has shopped the preemption law language (nearly identical across states) to friendly state legislatures and made campaign contributions on their behalf.
Reda more at http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2021/03/05/when-state-preemption-of-local-climate-laws-undermines-equity/
