Washington State Ban on Natural Gas Heating Is All Cost, No Benefit

The Washington State Building Code Council, an unelected board that governs construction standards, on Nov. 4 decided to effectively ban natural gas heating in new-construction homes and office buildings. Advocates of the new restrictions admitted reluctantly that their new requirements will increase the cost of housing, but perhaps even more notable is that the new rules will do nothing to advance the purported goal; namely, reducing the state’s CO2 emissions. The combination of artificially high cost and no benefit makes the new regulations a textbook example of how some politicians…

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