HUD and USDA announced and seek comment on a preliminary determination regarding energy efficiency standards for new construction of HUD- and USDA-financed housing as a first step to require compliance with these standards in HUD and USDA housing covered by the Energy Independence and Security Act.

The Rural Utilities Service solicited letters of interest for loan applications to finance power generation projects for renewable energy resource (RER) systems or energy storage systems that support RER Projects, announced the application process for those loans, and provided deadlines for applications from eligible entities under the Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program.

FWS revised the Mitigation Policy and the ESA Compensatory Mitigation Policy; the former establishes fundamental mitigation principles and provides a framework for applying a landscape-scale approach to achieve, through application of the mitigation hierarchy, no net loss of resources and their values, services, and functions resulting from proposed actions; the latter adopts the mitigation principles established in the Mitigation Policy, establishes compensatory mitigation standards, and provides guidance for the application of compensatory mitigation through implementation of the ESA.

NMFS found that Pacific sardine is still overfished.

NMFS proposed to designate and authorize the release of nonessential experimental populations of Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon in the McCloud and Upper Sacramento Rivers upstream of Shasta Dam, California, and established a limited set of take exceptions for the experimental populations under the ESA.

FWS initiated five-year status reviews under the ESA for 67 animal and plant species, and requested the submission of scientific and commercial data that has become available since the last review of the species.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed to implement §307 of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act and amend Regulation Z to address how the Truth in Lending Act applies to Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) transactions to account for the unique nature of PACE.

FWS reclassified Furbish’s lousewort from endangered to threatened under the ESA and finalized a rule under §4(d) of the Act to provide for conservation of the species.

The U.S. Geological Survey announced that it, in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Mexico’s La Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad, will undertake a two-year regional assessment of biodiversity and climate change, culminating in the first-ever assessment report addressing these two challenges together for the United States, Canada, Mexico, U.S. territories, and Freely Associated States.

CEQ requested information on Columbia River salmon and other native fish restoration, as well as other relevant information to an ongoing mediation.