California state Sen. Scott Wiener introduced Feb. 20 Senate Bill 1399. The legislation would expand access to offsite solar projects for non-residential customers by allowing them to partner with already-developed sites such as parking lots, warehouses, brownfields and landfills, and use those sites for solar energy that the local community can access. The bill would require the Public Utilities Commission to ensure that the credit reflects the full value of the electricity from the eligible renewable generating facilities, and that the credit is established using the same methodology as used to determine credits under the standard contract or tariff for eligible customer-generators. Sen. Wiener said in a press release that to meet aggressive renewable energy goals, California needs to dramatically expand solar, including maximizing use of our empty rooftops and other developed spaces. He added that the bill would spur the generation of more clean energy and create more good-paying solar installation jobs in communities throughout the state.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Jan. 25 the report, “Rental Housing: Improvements Needed to Better Monitor the Moving to Work Demonstration, Including Effects on Tenants.” Because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development‘s (HUD’s) oversight of the Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration has been limited, GAO released the report to indicate areas in need of improvement. GAO found that while HUD has taken steps to address staffing to oversee the current 39 MTW agencies, HUD has not finalized its workforce planning for 100 agencies to be added to the demonstration. In addition, without a monitoring process, HUD can’t provide reasonable assurance that MTW agencies have sound plans for expending reserves. Also, HUD does not assess the results of agencies’ analyses. GAO makes 11 recommendations to HUD, which include completing workforce planning, developing processes to track use of funds and monitor agencies’ reserves, and developing a framework. HUD generally agreed with eight of the recommendations and disagreed with three, citing the need for flexibility. The report is available at www.hudresourcecenter.com.