State Panel Frustrates Energy Efficiency Initiatives & Job Growth in California-

In what seems like an attempt to frustrate programs that support home energy retrofit funding via property taxes, the California Energy Commission recently announced that it will reallocate $30 million in public funds apportioned to help stimulate those initiatives. The Federal Housing Finance Agency persuasively blocked the programs when it alleged that such programs would interfere with mortgage loan payments and warned banks not to issue loans on homes tied to the public financing. Elected officials at the state and federal level have sued the federal agency and introduced legislation to reverse the judgment. However, if the money is not distributed by September 30th, the state Energy Commission risks losing federal stimulus funds for the energy efficient projects. “We support all the efforts to get this changed, but we are operating with the understanding that we could lose the (federal) funds by the end of the month,” said Susanne Garfield, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission. “Knowing how long lawsuits and legislation can take, we’re trying to be vigilant and not wait until the 11th hour.” According to Garfield, the $30 million which would have been distributed to Property Assessed Clean Energy Programs (PACE), will now be redirected to other energy development financing mechanisms. She says decisions will be made in the coming weeks about where to allocate the cash. She also added that the funds could be given to programs that include PACE as one financial form, among others. If the federal agency’s decision is withdrawn, the money could later be used solely for the innovative PACE programs. As it now stands, however, five California counties — Los Angeles, Humboldt, Sacramento, San Francisco and Sonoma — will not receive the federal disbursements and job creation they were expecting. The Energy Commission estimated that the five counties would have added 4,353 jobs, saved more than 336 kilowatt-hours of energy and thwarted 187,264 tons of greenhouse gases for the first two years of their programs. “This is a major blow and it traces right back to the … decision on July 6 to kill PACE programs,” said Cliff Staton, vice president of marketing for Renewable Funding, LLC, which designs, finances and administers PACE programs. Staton attests that the public investment could have created hundreds of millions of dollars of investments by homeowners and helped to revitalize an otherwise stagnant economy.