Supervisors back creation of community‑driven energy‑efficiency steering committee

Supervisor Eric Marr introduced an ordinance to create a seven‑member Energy Efficiency Steering Committee to guide San Francisco’s energy‑efficiency programming, prioritize investments in environmental‑justice communities and align green‑jobs opportunities with federal stimulus funding.

Marr said the steering committee would "create a policy document that’s gonna guide the city's energy efficiency work," and described four accountability goals: prioritize impacted communities, craft programs to ensure local job benefits, achieve health and economic co‑benefits, and create evaluation metrics. He offered a technical amendment to broaden the qualification language for seat 6 to increase flexibility for appointing researching or education professionals employed by economic‑development consultants or academic institutions (motion to amend accepted without objection).

Community groups testified in support of the ordinance during public comment. Oscar Grande of PODARE praised the equity focus and described community outreach and focus groups used to inform the proposal. June Bershares, green energy director at Global Exchange, urged inclusion of low‑income and environmental‑justice communities in program roll‑out. Speakers also urged the committee to include explicit workforce and local‑hiring measures for formerly incarcerated people and other targeted groups; Supervisor Marr said he would pass those suggestions to workforce staff for further consideration.

The committee moved the ordinance forward with recommendation to the full Board.

No final Board vote occurred in the Rules Committee meeting; the motion before the Rules Committee was to forward the measure with a recommendation.