Feds just sued a NJ town over your stove — here’s why it matters

When my parents bought their newly built home in Mays Landing in 1960, natural gas was not just a utility. It was a selling point.

The whole neighborhood came with it. Heat, hot water, stove, oven -- all gas. And if that was not enough, every home in the development came with a natural gas driveway lamp that burned around the clock. I grew up in a house with flames on the stove and a flame at the end of the driveway, and I never thought twice about it. That was just how a home worked.

I did not know anything different until I moved into my first apartment at 18 and encountered one of those coiled electric stove burners for the first time. I did not know much about cooking at 18 -- let's be honest about that -- but I knew immediately that something was off. With a gas flame you can see exactly what you have. You can judge the heat, control it, respond to it. That coiled electric burner just sat there glowing orange, doing whatever it wanted on its own schedule. It was like trying to have a conversation with someone who wouldn't look at you.

Years later, after I bought my own home, I had it converted to natural gas. Back to cooking on a real flame. We never looked back.

SEE ALSO: 10 reasons NJ is so expensive - and why it keeps getting worse 

The federal government just pushed back -- hard

So when I read that the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Morris Township over its ordinance requiring all-electric appliances in new residential buildings of 12 units or more, I understood exactly what was at stake. This was not an abstract policy dispute. This was the government of a New Jersey town trying to tell builders -- and by extension, future residents -- that they could not have what my parents considered a basic feature of a well-built home in 1960.

The DOJ called the Morris Township ordinance a "radical" policy that drives up costs and limits consumer choice. The ordinance applies only to new construction, not existing homes. But that is exactly the point. The places where families will live tomorrow are being built today, and decisions made now about what energy source powers those homes will shape daily life for decades.

What the science actually says

Here is something worth knowing. Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. It emits significantly lower amounts of greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter compared to coal and oil. That does not make it perfect. But it makes the rush to eliminate it -- before the alternatives are actually ready -- a decision driven more by ideology than by practical energy policy.

I understand the push toward wind and solar. The idea is right. But the infrastructure simply is not there yet. The grid cannot handle a full conversion at scale. The storage technology is still catching up. And in the meantime, the United States is sitting on enormous natural gas reserves that have not come close to being fully developed. We have a cleaner fossil fuel in abundance right beneath our feet, and certain local governments want to ban it from new buildings before the replacement is even ready.

This is not progress -- it is a detour

My parents' neighborhood in Mays Landing was built with natural gas because it was modern. It was efficient. It was the right answer for its time. I would argue it is still a reasonable answer for ours -- at least until the clean energy infrastructure can genuinely carry the load.

Morris Township had the right to pass its ordinance. Local governments make these calls. But the federal government also has standing to say that cutting off consumer choice in new construction, before the alternatives can realistically replace what is being banned, is a step in the wrong direction.

That driveway lamp burned for years. It lit up the whole street. There is something worth remembering in that.