Washington state House passes bill that effectively bans natural gas, encourages 'equitably' shifting to electricity

The Washington state House has passed a bill that would effectively end the use of natural gas in new buildings as part of a larger attempt to move toward full electrification in an "equitable" manner.

On Tuesday, the House, which is controlled by Democrats, passed HB1589, also referred to as the Washington Decarbonization Act for Large Combination Utilities. The bill would prohibit any company serving at least 500,000 natural gas customers from providing natural gas service to any commercial or residential building that did not receive or apply for natural gas services by June 30 of last year.

While the bill technically addresses all such large natural gas companies, it would mainly affect Puget Sound Energy, which serves over 900,000 natural gas and 1.2 million electricity customers, according to its website. Should HB1589 be signed into law, PSE would no longer be required to provide natural gas to its existing customers as mandated by current state law, reports claim.

One provision in the bill would require that it take effect immediately. Another carved out exceptions for medical, correctional, and some manufacturing facilities.

A previous iteration of the bill failed to pass last year, but this year, HB1589 passed easily, 52-45, mostly along party lines. A few Democrats did vote against it, but no Republican voted for it.

According to an official House report, the purpose of the bill is to encourage "decarbonization" to help mitigate the effects of so-called climate change. In theory, it would support other state measures, including the Clean Energy Transformation Act and the Climate Commitment Act, to achieve "aggressive decarbonization goals for gas and electric utilities."

However, saving the climate may not be the only goal of HB1589. Proponents of the bill, ever mindful of climate change's supposedly disproportionate impact on "low-income and BIPOC communities," boasted that it implements a form of restorative justice. "It used to be that if the rates for everyone were the same, that was considered equitable," said a summary opinion included in the official House report, "but some of those past assumptions are being reexamined and more equitable ways of approaching rates are being considered."

With HB1589, gas companies such as PSE must "equitably distribute the benefits and burdens of electrification and decarbonization," the summary proudly claimed.

Opponents argued that the measure would likely cause consumers' utility bills to skyrocket, especially in times of unusually high rates of consumption. Earlier this month, PSE asked customers to lower their thermostats and reduce hot water usage out of fear that the unseasonably cold weather would create too much "strain on the grid."

"Not even two weeks have passed since thousands of Washington families fought bitter cold winter weather causing PSE to ask them to curb their energy use to reduce strain on the grid. Removing natural gas as a source of heating homes and water will cause our electrical grid to fail," said a statement from Greg Lane, the executive vice president of the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Still, others claimed that if small changes were made, the bill "could provide a national model for transitioning utilities to electricity."

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