{"id":2383,"date":"2010-07-19T11:51:08","date_gmt":"2010-07-19T18:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unrbep.org\/?p=2383"},"modified":"2010-11-08T11:42:34","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T18:42:34","slug":"house-democrats-introduce-bill-to-defend-pace-clean-energy-program-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/house-democrats-introduce-bill-to-defend-pace-clean-energy-program-2\/","title":{"rendered":"House Democrats introduce bill to defend PACE clean-energy program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty House Democrats signed on to a new bill on Thursday that would save <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-01-26-how-innovative-financing-is-changing-energy-in-america\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>Property Assessed Clean Energy<\/a><\/strong> (PACE) programs, which have been under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-07-06-fannie-and-freddie-to-clean-energy-program-drop-dead\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>attack from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac<\/a>. PACE is a finance tool that helps homeowners afford energy-efficiency retrofits and renewable-energy installations.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3642\" target=\"\u201c_blank\u201d\">PACE Assessment Protection Act of 2010<\/a> would force the government-sponsored corporations to adopt standards that support PACE, based on Department of Energy guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the bill&#8217;s author, Rep. Mike Thompson of northern California, hopes the legislation persuades Fannie and Freddie to accept a compromise before it&#8217;s signed into law.<\/p>\n<p>The finance tool certainly has a lot of friends. It&#8217;s been backed by $150 million in Department of Energy stimulus funding, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.govtech.com\/gt\/731543\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>the vice president&#8217;s Middle Class Task Force<\/a>, 23 state legislatures, governors such as <a href=\"http:\/\/pacenow.org\/documents\/Gov.%20Schwarzenegger%20FHFA%20Letter%205.13.10.PDF\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> [PDF], and mayors such as <a href=\"http:\/\/pacenow.org\/documents\/Mayor%20Bloomberg%20FHFA%20Letter%205.18.10.pdf\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>Michael Bloomberg<\/a> [PDF]. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-07-14-california-attorney-general-sues-fannie-freddie-over-pace\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued<\/a><\/strong> Fannie and Freddie yesterday to defend the PACE programs, the largest of which are in California.<\/p>\n<p>PACE programs let home and business owners pay for rooftop solar arrays, high-efficiency furnaces, insulation, and other improvements through a surcharge on their property tax bills, removing high up-front costs. Fannie and Freddie dislike that those tax assessments have senior lien standing to mortgages, even though <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-07-12-home-energy-efficiency-cuts-mortgage-default-rates.-fannie-fredd\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>analyses and pilot programs<\/a> have found that energy efficiency and PACE programs can make borrowers more financially secure.<\/p>\n<p>Read the complete article at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-07-15-democrats-introduce-pace-bill-to-defend-clean-energy-program\/\" target=\u201c_blank\u201d>GRIST<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty House Democrats signed on to a new bill on Thursday that would save Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs, which have been under attack from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. PACE is a finance tool that helps homeowners afford energy-efficiency retrofits and renewable-energy installations. The PACE Assessment Protection Act of 2010 would &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/house-democrats-introduce-bill-to-defend-pace-clean-energy-program-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">House Democrats introduce bill to defend PACE clean-energy program<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}