Former president backs PACE program
Former President Bill Clinton is backing efforts to expand the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, which finances energy-saving retrofits for homes and buildings, to a national level. The PACE program, which began in California last year, is already administered by cities in 13 other states.
Under the program, participating cities and states establish financing districts in which commercial and residential property owners can use proceeds from PACE bonds issued by the districts to finance energy retrofits, such as efficiency measures and small renewable energy systems. The property owners repay their loans over 15 to 20 years through annual assessments on their property tax bills. “PACE bonds can provide enormous amounts of much-needed, low-cost capital to retrofit America’s towns and cities all while creating local jobs,” said Jeffrey Tannenbaum, founder of PACENOW, the organization that administers the program. “PACE finance has strong bipartisan support, as it provides large benefits to property owners, existing mortgage lenders, municipalities and our nation without burdening our nation’s taxpayers.”
Clinton’s New York-based Clinton Global Initiative, which promotes government and private sector partnerships to address world problems, including environmental conservation, will campaign to spread the PACE program nationwide, starting with encouraging 50 major cities to adopt the program. More information is available at PACENOW.org.