The Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday night to scrap the city’s two-year-old all-electric new-construction ordinance, rolling back a rule that had tried to limit natural-gas hookups in many new low-rise homes and smaller commercial projects. The move marks a sharp turn for a city that once cast itself as a Central Valley frontrunner on building electrification when it approved the law in 2021.
The vote formally removed the New Building Electrification Ordinance, according to The Sacramento Bee. City officials had already hit pause on enforcement after a federal appeals court decision raised legal red flags, and the city’s planning webpages note that enforcement stopped in April 2023 while staff hunted for EPCA-compliant alternatives. In a statement to The Sacramento Bee, city spokesperson Kelli Trapani said Sacramento "has no other electrification ordinances at this time."
What the Repeal Removes
The 2021 ordinance required newly constructed residential and commercial buildings up to three stories to be all-electric starting Jan. 1, 2023, with four-story and taller projects phased in by Jan. 1, 2026. It carved out limited, time-bound exemptions for ground-floor restaurant cooking equipment, certain manufacturing process loads, and water heating in regulated affordable housing, and it included an infeasibility-waiver process. Those details were laid out as the measure moved through the council and were covered by local media at the time, as reported by CapRadio.
Why the Timing Changed
Local momentum for gas bans cooled after a federal appeals court ruling undercut Berkeley’s similar ordinance and led other cities to pause or unwind their own rules, according to The Associated Press. State lawmakers then stepped in with AB 130, a bill that limits how far cities can go in adopting more restrictive residential building standards for a set period and outlines only narrow exceptions.
The enrolled bill text for AB 130 establishes a moratorium that runs from Oct. 1, 2025, to June 1, 2031, and spells out the conditions under which local governments can still seek tougher rules. For the statutory language, see the text published on LegiScan.
What This Means for Builders and the City
With the local ordinance now off the books, developers and builders will default to the updated 2025 California Building Standards Code as the baseline for permits. That code encourages electric options for space and water heating and cooking in many new buildings, according to the City of Sacramento.
City staff say they plan to pivot to EPCA-compliant reach codes, incentives and electric-readiness measures intended to nudge rather than mandate electrification, in hopes of avoiding the kind of federal preemption fights that tripped up Berkeley. Policy groups argue that carefully designed reach codes and targeted incentives can still cut a meaningful slice of building emissions while steering clear of those legal landmines, according to analysis from SPUR.
Legal Implications
From a legal standpoint, Sacramento's repeal lowers the immediate risk of being dragged into a preemption lawsuit, but it does not settle the broader state-level tug of war over how far local governments can go to decarbonize buildings. AB 130 outlines explicit exceptions, such as emergency health and safety standards, home-hardening measures and local code changes that were already in effect as of Sept. 30, 2025. Cities are already parsing whether narrowly tailored reach codes can fit inside those exceptions without landing them back in court, according to legal analyses from Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP.
The repeal has split opinion. Industry groups that challenged Berkeley’s ban have welcomed tighter limits on local mandates, while climate and public-health advocates argue Sacramento has just tossed aside one of the simplest tools for cutting building emissions. City officials say they will now lean more heavily on outreach, incentives and code work that fits within federal and state guardrails. How fast that strategy translates into more all-electric buildings in Sacramento is a question the city will be living with for years.
