If you tuned in to this week’s House Energy & Policy Energy Subcommittee hearing on energy efficiency, you may have heard about H.R. 3699, dubbed the “Energy Choice Act.” While it has not yet been acted on by the House Committee for Energy and Commerce, this bill is bad news for public health, energy affordability, and local control. 

According to its sponsor, Rep. Langworthy, H.R. 3699 is an effort to “ban the bans”—that is, to block laws that prohibit gas appliances, like New York’s All-Electric Buildings Act. But the bill goes much further than that, eliminating large swathes of commonsense health and safety protections, and threatening fundamental controls on energy prices. 

To understand why that is, let’s take a look at what the bill says. 

Short and Sour 

H.R. 3699 is not a long or complicated bill. A single sentence constitutes the majority of the bill’s text: 

A State or local government, or instrumentality or regulatory agency thereof, may not adopt, implement, or enforce a law, regulation, ordinance, building code, standard, or policy that prohibits or limits, or has the effect of directly or indirectly prohibiting or limiting the connection, reconnection, modification, installation, transportation, distribution, expansion, or access to an energy service based on the type or source of energy that is sold in interstate commerce to be delivered to an end-user of such energy service. 

In case the long lists of synonyms don’t make it clear, this language is absurdly broad. It would, as advertised, prevent state and local governments from prohibiting the use of gas in buildings. It would also preempt any regulation that “has the effect of…indirectly…limiting…access to” any type of energy. This could potentially cover everything from automatic safety shutoffs to zoning regulations. And given the aggressive legal campaign that industry has waged over the meaning of “concerning…energy use” in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, we expect that trade groups would take advantage of this. 

What it Could Mean 

H.R. 3699’s aggressive preemption is alarming because much of our energy systems, our safety and health, and our wallets depend on state and local regulations. While the federal government regulates energy transmission, like high-voltage interstate lines, state and local governments are the primary regulators for distribution, which is how gas and electricity reach individual homes and businesses. State and local regulations also ensure that your wiring won’t start a fire, that your gas fittings won’t leak, and that your contractor knows what they’re doing. When you ask whether you're wiring or gas piping is “up to code,” the “code” is usually a state or local law. 

All of these regulations would be threatened by H.R. 3699. Electrical, gas, and other fuel-safety standards arguably limit “connection,” “installation,” or “access” for gas or electricity services. After all, they limit when and how appliances or buildings can connect to the relevant energy-distribution system and frequently allow for emergency cutoffs to protect public safety. More broadly, state and local agencies ensure that the local grid and gas-distribution networks are built in a safe and reasonable manner. If those regulators are forbidden from any action that could “limit…access to an energy service,” they may not even be able to deny permits to a utility. (Not to mention that the bill specifically blocks regulation of hydrogen, despite its safety risks.) 

As written, this bill appears to also prevent state regulation of utility rates—risking our wallets as well as our health and safety. One of the most important elements of this regulation is determining when investor-owned utilities are permitted to charge their customers for projects they’ve undertaken. Saying “no” to a utility investment, such as a new line to a previously unserved area, can protect ratepayers from increased bills, but it also “limits…expansion” of or “access to” that energy source. Conversely, requiring customers to pay more money for a utility—to cover low-income and elderly reduced rates, for example—may “ha[ve] the effect of” limiting access to that utility.  

Importantly, no federal authorities exist to replace most of this work. The federal government may theoretically be able to take over, but in most cases that would require an extensive set of new legislation from Congress as well as a complete rethinking of how federal energy regulation currently functions; it’s hard to imagine the Department of Energy maintaining an inspection unit in every town in America. That means that H.R. 3699 is not deciding who gets to regulate, but whether the regulations exist at all.  

Where We’re Going 

H.R. 3699 is written more as a messaging bill than a real effort to legislate. It uses broad language and undefined terms. It doesn’t address obvious conflicts with other federal laws, several of which explicitly require state governments to do things that H.R. 3699 would prohibit. And when a (somewhat more rational) version was introduced in the 2023-2024 legislative session, it never advanced beyond the House Committee for Energy & Commerce.  

Nevertheless, there are worrying signs that the bill could evolve into a genuine law as part of the broader wave of “reforms” aimed at federal appliance and energy regulation. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Acting General Counsel called it out during his testimony at Tuesday’s hearing. H.R. 3699 got several shoutouts at last week’s subcommittee hearing, as well. And Rep. Langworthy has been talking about it to the public.  

If the bill does make it into a legislative package, even in a watered-down version, it represents a concerning threat to health and safety. Efforts to encourage the use of electricity instead of fossil fuels, which are the core target of H.R. 3699, are a critically important means to reduce indoor and outdoor air pollution. Mandatory requirements are crucial to advancing electrification because many developers, and some building owners, have no incentive to protect the buildings’ inhabitants because they plan to sell or rent the building. And preemption is often bad for public health in general because it prevents state and local governments, with more knowledge and more at stake, from protecting their constituents. With high-efficiency electric appliances like heat pumps starting to beat out their fossil-fuel counterparts, H.R. 3699 seeks to stem the turning tide through dysfunction and deregulation.

Daniel Carpenter-Gold, Senior Staff Attorney
September 19, 2025