Energy: California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority: Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE).

(1) The California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority Act establishes the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority and authorizes the authority to issue revenue bonds to provide industry with an alternative method of financing in providing and promoting the establishment of facilities utilizing alternative methods and sources of energy and facilities needed for the development and commercialization of advanced transportation technologies. Existing law authorizes a public agency and a property owner to enter into voluntary contractual assessments to finance the installation of distributed generation renewable energy sources or energy or water efficiency improvements that are permanently affixed on real property. This bill would require the authority to establish a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Reserve program to assist local jurisdictions in financing the installation of distributed generation renewable energy sources or energy or water efficiency improvements meeting specified requirements that are permanently affixed on real property through the use of a voluntary contractual assessment. The bill would, until January 1, 2015, appropriate up to $50,000,000 from the Renewable Resource Trust Fund to the authority for the purposes of the PACE Reserve program. The bill would require the authority, on March 31, 2011, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2015, to submit to the Legislature a report containing specified information regarding the implementation of the above provisions. (2) Existing law vests the authority with specified powers in the implementation of the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority Act. This bill would authorize the authority to purchase bonds issued by a public agency meeting specified criteria. The bill would authorize the authority to hold the purchased bonds or to sell the purchased bonds, in whole or in part, to public or private purchasers. (3) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.