Mercury News
By Aldo Toledo
MENLO PARK — The progressive Green New Deal proposal to fight climate change may have gone out of fashion in Washington, D.C., but some of its ideas to reduce emissions are alive and well in Menlo Park.
On Tuesday, Menlo Park city council members are set to discuss an innovative plan to convert 95% of existing buildings to all-electric power by 2030, a move which would eclipse the climate goals of other major Bay Area cities as well as fulfill a basic benchmark of the wide-reaching climate and jobs bill proposed by the country’s progressive leaders.
Though cities like Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose have banned gas-powered appliances in all new buildings in recent years, only Menlo Park and San Francisco so far have proposed programs and incentives to replace the vast majority of gas-powered appliances in existing buildings citywide within the next decade.
“I’m really proud that Menlo Park has been a leader and is putting out one of the strongest climate change plans in the state,” said state Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) in an interview. “We’ve all seen the urgency of climate change, and we have to move faster and be bolder. The intersection with the Green New Deal in all this is that there are job opportunities as we work to make homes more energy-efficient and also move to electric appliances and green construction.”