Bend’s Environment and Climate Committee recommends Bend limit gas use in new construction.

For every green person, or not-so-green person or decidedly ungreen person wondering what the city of Bend might do to push toward a climate goal of electrification, the recommendation from a city committee is clear.

Bend’s Environment and Climate Committee plans to recommend to the Bend City Council that Bend limit gas use in new construction. Most members of the committee actually wanted a total prohibition on new gas use.

The committee wants the city to enact regulations to limit gas piping in the right of way for new construction.

It wants the city to pursue standards for nitrous oxide emissions, or NOx, for new appliances in new and existing buildings.

It wants a new construction pollution fee that would scale with expected gas use and “the social cost of carbon” for buildings that choose to connect to natural gas. The money raised could be used to help low- to moderate-income homes do retrofits.

It wants more education and outreach to builders and the rest of Bend.

It wants to raise the licensing fee for any gas utility to support incentives.

It wants policy advocacy toward natural gas reduction.

The committee made these recommendations at a meeting last week after spending a couple hours on top of the hours it has already spent. The challenge was balancing their own desires for action with recognition of legal uncertainty, questions about funding, acknowledgment of limits on what city staff has time to do and more. Any regulatory action that the city takes to limit new gas piping or to have a NOx standard would be mostly uncharted legal territory in Oregon.

In the public comments before the meeting, the Bend Chamber of Commerce urged the committee to meet people where they are at and prioritize incentives rather than regulation. The committee, though, wants the city to take regulatory action to compel change.

The committee didn’t talk about it directly in the meeting on Thursday, but there will also soon be a Republican-controlled Congress, a Republican president and his appointees. Any new regulation to shift Bend toward electrification and away from natural gas may come in for federal scrutiny or even prohibition.

The committee’s recommendation will likely come before the Bend City Council in December. So if you have thoughts, email councilors here: council@bendoregon.gov. You can read a version of the committee’s recommendation here: tinyurl.com/Bendnogas.