financing
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Fannie and Freddie are clueless in smacking down PACE
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) issued guidance yesterday that drew a line in the sand against municipal energy financing, a.k.a. Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. These innovative initiatives provide energy-efficiency retrofits for homeowners that are repaid through a property tax assessment. Since homeowners falling behind on payments must repay their PACE assessment before […]
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Fannie and Freddie to clean-energy program: Drop dead
Grist has been covering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s attack on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a promising tool that helps homeowners finance green improvements to their properties. Here’s the latest: On Tuesday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended their radio silence nine weeks after sending cryptic letters warning lenders against permitting the use of […]
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Fannie and Freddie won’t let this teacher green her home
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have shut down most of the nation’s programs using Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), an innovative tool that helps Americans finance green improvements to their homes. Here’s a homeowner’s perspective on the story: Thomason and her Boulder County home. Kayla Thomason spent last winter wondering if the furnace would hold […]
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Exclusive: Obama admin unable to resolve shutdown of PACE clean-energy program
Obama administration officials have failed to resolve a dispute with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that has shut down Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), according to an email obtained by Grist. The impasse will likely kill the promising clean-energy financing tool until Congress passes legislation addressing it, according to Cisco DeVries, who first created the […]
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Fannie and Freddie bring down Boulder clean-energy finance program
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac claimed the first casualty in their attack on a promising clean-energy financing tool when Boulder County, Colo., canceled the latest round of its popular ClimateSmart Loan Program on Tuesday. “We are extremely disappointed by the lack of flexibility and vision we’ve encountered with the FHFA [Federal Housing Finance Agency], and […]
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Greening homes requires credit, which Fannie and Freddie should understand
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have essentially shut down an innovative program that helps Americans green their homes. Here’s more on the story: Jeanine Cotter, CEO of California solar installation company Luminalt, has a good explanation of what keeps homeowners from investing in rooftop solar and retrofits that cut energy waste. In her experience, people […]
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Hoping for a shakeup at the G8/G20
I arrived in Toronto yesterday and, along with thousands of activists, media, and government officials arriving for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits, was promplty greeted by an unusual earthquake centered a few hours away outside of Ottawa. Unfortunately, if our Canadian hosts have their way, that could be the only groundbreaking event I’ll witness […]
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Fannie and Freddie attack clean-energy plan
Few new ideas brighten the faces of clean-energy advocates as much as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, the Berkeley-born financing tool that’s spreading quickly throughout the country. The three-year-old model has put rooftop solar panels, high-efficiency furnaces, and other home improvements within reach of thousands of American homeowners, and there’s hope it could reach […]
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Exposing the Financers of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
This post was co-written by Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability and Finance Representative for the Sierra Club. The idea of corporate responsibility has come up repeatedly in recent weeks following the coal mine and oil disasters. That responsibility extends beyond profits to the health and well-being of our communities. By continuing to finance mountaintop removal coal […]