OPINION
BUMATAY, Circuit Judge:
*2 By completely prohibiting the installation of natural gas piping within newly constructed buildings, the City of Berkeley has waded into a domain preempted by Congress. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act (“EPCA”), 42 U.S.C. § 6297(c), expressly preempts State and local regulations concerning the energy use of many natural gas appliances, including those used in household and restaurant kitchens. Instead of directly banning those appliances in new buildings, Berkeley took a more circuitous route to the same result. It enacted a building code that prohibits natural gas piping into those buildings, rendering the gas appliances useless.
The California Restaurant Association, whose members include restaurateurs and chefs, challenged Berkeley's regulation, raising an EPCA preemption claim. The district court dismissed the suit. In doing so, it limited the Act's preemptive scope to ordinances that facially or directly regulate covered appliances. But such limits do not appear in EPCA's text. By its plain text and structure, EPCA's preemption provision encompasses building codes that regulate natural gas use by covered products. And by preventing such appliances from using natural gas, the new Berkeley building code does exactly that.
We thus conclude that EPCA preempts Berkeley's building code's effect against covered products and reverse.
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As these cases make clear, States and localities can't skirt the text of broad preemption provisions by doing indirectly what Congress says they can't do directly. EPCA would no doubt preempt an ordinance that directly prohibits the use of covered natural gas appliances in new buildings. So Berkeley can't evade preemption by merely moving up one step in the energy chain and banning natural gas piping within those buildings. Otherwise, the ability to use covered products is “meaningless” if consumers can't access the natural gas available to them within the City of Berkeley. See Engine Mfrs. ***'n, 541 U.S. at 255, 124 S.Ct. 1756.
IV.
In sum, Berkeley can't bypass preemption by banning natural gas piping within buildings rather than banning natural gas products themselves. EPCA thus preempts the Ordinance's effect on covered products. We therefore reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the district court must reinstate the Association's state-law claims.
California Rest. ***'n v. City of Berkeley, No. 21-16278, 2023 WL 2962921, at *1–9 (9th Cir. Apr. 17, 2023)
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