More News

This is a response to Mike Sherling's Jan. 28 [letter to the editor], "Help make solar panels available to home owners." The College Park City Council is working on an energy efficiency loan fund for the city in which residents can borrow funds from a pool of money to finance energy efficiency upgrades in their homes.

Its passing is temporarily inhibited by a state law, but fortunately Del. Sue Hecht of District 3A is introducing the Clean Energy Loans bill, which would enable all municipalities in the state to set up such programs.

These types of policies are being pushed from all levels of government. The Department of Energy pushed the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program at the end of 2009 that looked for applications demonstrating cooperation between several municipalities, regional planning agencies, and state energy offices for either the Retrofit Ramp-Up program or "General Innovation Fund." This initiative, which had up to $454 million dollars available, shows the ongoing push for green investment everywhere.

Kenny Frankel of College Park is the webmaster for the University of Maryland student advocacy group, UMD for Clean Energy.