Just because you don’t think about natural gas doesn’t mean radical environmentalists – including New Mexico’s senior U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich – don’t. Heinrich recently wrote in the New York Times that “working to electrify our vehicles, homes and businesses is a critical part of achieving economywide net-zero emissions.”
He’s pushing legislation in Congress and for funding in the infrastructure bill for electrification – which is really another way of saying phasing out or banning your natural gas stove, oven and furnace and requiring you to use electric heat and stoves.
Sacramento recently became the 46th U.S. city to begin “phasing out natural gas in new buildings.” It’s not just happening in California. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Seattle, Denver and New York have all either enacted or proposed measures to ban or discourage the use of the fossil fuel in new homes and buildings.”
Just a decade or so ago the Sierra Club and other environmental groups supported natural gas as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal. Now, Heinrich, counter to the economic interests of the state he represents – New Mexico is a major natural gas producer – and against the expressed preferences of consumers who use such appliances, is pushing to eliminate natural gas.
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