Senate committee advances draft CPACE bill after lenders, regulators press for safeguards

A Senate committee on March 12 reviewed a new draft of S.138 that would let municipal legislatures designate a Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (CPACE) district enabling property owners to finance renewable energy, efficiency and resilience projects via special assessments.

The committee’s draft—presented by legislative counsel—creates a new subchapter (section 3275) that authorizes a legislative body of a town, city or incorporated village to vote to designate a municipality as a CPACE district rather than putting that question to a popular vote. It restricts participation to commercial and industrial buildings (defined in the bill as structures with five or more units) and requires property owners to enter written agreements and obtain pre-enrollment analyses of proposed energy, water or resilience improvements performed by licensed professionals. The bill sets an earliest enrollment date of January 1, 2027.

Why it matters: supporters say CPACE helps businesses fund large clean-energy retrofits that otherwise would be difficult to finance; critics and staff flagged lender protections, foreclosure mechanics and program…