{"id":391508,"date":"2026-01-06T10:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391508\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:16:07","slug":"trump-officials-sue-california-cities-over-laws-to-restrict-fossil-fuels-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/391508\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump officials sue California cities over laws to restrict fossil fuels | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> sued two California cities on Monday, seeking to block local laws that restrict natural gas infrastructure and appliances in new construction.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is the administration\u2019s latest attack on energy policies that seek to rein in the use of fossil fuels to combat climate change. California<\/a>, a Democratic stronghold, has among the most aggressive climate change policies in the world.<\/p>\n

Republicans, including Donald Trump, for years have attacked local Democratic efforts to limit gas-powered appliances.<\/p>\n

In the complaint filed in US district court in the northern district of California, justice department attorneys alleged that ordinances passed by the San Francisco-area cities of Morgan Hill and Petaluma since 2019 violated a 1975 law that prevents states and cities from regulating the \u201cenergy use\u201d of products subject to federal standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe natural gas bans not only impose crushing costs on California residents but are also unlawful,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n

Since 2019, dozens of US municipalities have enacted ordinances that restrict natural gas hookups. A federal appeals court in 2023 ruled that the city of Berkeley could not enforce its 2019 natural gas ban.<\/p>\n

The city manager of Petaluma, Peggy Flynn, said in an email that the city had no immediate comment. Morgan Hill officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

California governor Gavin Newsom and state attorney general Rob Bonta have yet to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

In July, the city joined several other counties, including Santa Clara county, where Morgan Hill is located, in a lawsuit against the Trump administration over funding restrictions that would disqualify applicants the Trump administration deems out of step with their positions on issues like DEI and reproductive rights.<\/p>\n

That same month, both locales joined a separate lawsuit<\/a> \u2013 alongside more than 30 other Bay Area cities and counties \u2013 to challenge Trump\u2019s actions on sanctuary jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

Reuters contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration sued two California cities on Monday, seeking to block local laws that restrict natural gas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-391508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}