“Keep It In the Ground” activists have begun to focus on limiting demand for natural gas in their efforts to stop its production. Most recently, a small city 85 miles north of Seattle made national headlines when it announced it was considering a ban on all residential natural gas heating – a move that would be costly for residents.

Bellingham, Washington, joins a few dozen cities on the West Coast and in Massachusetts pursuing a costly, misguided, and dangerous campaign against natural gas. Last summer, Berkeley, California became the first city in the country to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new construction. The policy disregarded the high prices of electricity, impact on lower-income families, and consumer preferences for natural gas. Since then, cities have been one-upping one another in increasingly self-congratulatory policies that have little regard for facts or the impacts of these actions.

Bellingham goes even farther than Berkeley with its proposal. It would not only ban natural gas heating in new construction, but also remove all existing natural gas infrastructure in existing homes and businesses, forcing consumers with natural gas heating to replace it with an electric system. The proposal would make Bellingham the first city in the country to ban all natural gas residential heating.

Read more at EIDClimate.org.