On February 8, 2022, as part of the Frank G. Wells Clinic in Environmental Law, Daniel Carpenter-Gold, Cara Horowitz, and Julia Stein filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of seven law professors in the Ninth Circuit case California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley, in which the California Restaurant Association (CRA), an industry association, is challenging a Berkeley ordinance barring natural-gas piping in most new buildings on the ground that it is preempted by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA). The clinic’s clients are leading experts in energy and environmental law: William Boyd, UCLA; Dan Farber, UC Berkeley; Sharon Jacobs, University of Colorado Boulder; Jim Rossi, Vanderbilt; David Spence, UT Austin; Shelley Welton, University of South Carolina and UPenn; Hannah Wiseman, Penn State. The brief argues that state and local control over utility infrastructure siting is an important element of U.S. energy regulation and Congress showed no intent to eliminate that control in enacting EPCA. Consequently, EPCA does not preempt local ordinances like Berkeley’s.

Download the brief.