Keeping PACE: Federal Mortgage Lenders Halt Local Clean Energy Programs (Property Assessed Clean Energy‪)‬

I. INTRODUCTION Due to rapid technological improvements and growing concerns over global warming and per capita energy consumption, low-energy appliances and environmental retrofits (1) have become increasingly available to homeowners in the past few years. (2) During this period, there has been a concomitant rise in the number of programs available for financing such improvements. (3) In the burgeoning market for clean energy, no program has proved as dynamic (4) or controversial (5) as property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing. PACE, a local government initiative now established in twenty-two states, expands upon traditional land-secured finance authority for the purpose of improving household and commercial energy efficiency. (6) PACE programs provide bond-financed funding to qualifying property owners for the purpose of financing energy improvements. (7) Under such a program, the cost of qualified energy improvements is added as an assessment tax to the owner's yearly property tax bill, with the obligation to pay being secured by a lien on the encumbered property. (8)