The Brief

California has nearly two million homes with rooftop solar — a major success. But that scale-up has largely left out nearly half of Californians who rent.

In Los Angeles, that number is even higher: more than 60% of people rent, according to 2021 data from the Southern California Association of Governments.

Now the California Public Utilities Commission is set to vote on Thursday on a proposal that could significantly cut current incentives for apartments, businesses and schools to put solar on their rooftops.

What does the proposal say?

The proposal changes the rules around “Virtual Net Energy Metering,” or VNEM, and “Net Energy Metering Aggregation,” or NEMA. The programs as they currently stand allow properties with multiple electric meters — such as apartments, schools, strip malls, etc. — to get paid back for the amount of excess electricity they generate on their properties and sell back to the utility grid, thus making solar more affordable for a wider array of people and businesses.

While the newly revised proposal still allows this credit for apartment residents, though at a lower compensation rate, it excludes energy use in apartment common spaces, such as shared laundry, outdoor lighting, gyms, and electric vehicle charging stations. Solar advocates and rental industry associations argue that makes apartment owners even less likely to install solar because the savings don’t pencil out.

Putting more solar panels on rooftops can help offset the need for utility-scale solar fields, but experts say both are necessary to generate the amount of electricity needed for a cleaner energy future.

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For schools, the proposal not only reduces the compensation for the excess electricity they send back to the grid we all rely on, but also requires them to pay the full retail price for the electricity they consume, even during the day when using the power from their solar panels.

The proposed changes don't apply to qualifying low-income apartments.

“We need to sprint, and we're throwing up these barriers to actually building renewable energy, while at the same time patting ourselves on the back like we're climate change heroes,” said Bernadette del Chiaro, executive director of the solar trade organization the California Solar and Storage Association.

She said a similar cut to rooftop solar incentives for single-family homes last year has already led to a steep drop off in the solar market — 80% year over year by her organization’s calculations. The L.A. Times reported that the nation’s largest solar installer, Sunrun, laid off 1,000 people since the policy change.

Investor-owned utilities including Southern California Edison argue the change is needed to avoid what they call a “cost shift” — that apartment dwellers and businesses without solar are bearing the burden of higher electricity rates and fixed costs, while those with solar disproportionately save on those costs under the current rules. They also say the complexity of accurately crediting multifamily properties is another challenge and added cost because it’s difficult to understand who is using how much solar energy and when in a multi-family or multi-business building.

Last year, California cut incentives for installing solar on single-family homes. Now the state is proposing cutting incentives for buildings such as apartments and schools.

“At SCE, we want to make sure that customers are paying a fair price for power,” said Jeff Monford, a spokesperson for the utility. “We believe that the incentives for producers of energy via solar are no longer needed to establish that industry like they were in the past. As we move forward into the clean energy future, we think it's time to reduce those subsidies and not introduce more of them, especially because the cost of power has such a disproportionate effect on customers who are not able to participate in solar generation.”

A renter’s perspective

Sean Draper rents an apartment in Simi Valley and has worked in the solar industry for the last seven years. He’s kept a close eye on solar decisions made by the state. He wants to talk to his landlord about installing solar, but worries the proposed changes to current policy make it unrealistic.

“I feel like it is going to be, as I try to engage in that conversation with ownership here, a bit of an uphill battle,” Draper said.

While he said leaving the credit for residents is a step in the right direction, the lack of inclusion for similar credits in shared spaces in apartments, such as EV chargers, doesn’t make it cost-effective for apartment owners.

“Gas where I am is up to $5, $6 dollars a gallon and we're all feeling the pinch,” he said. “I'm currently contemplating purchasing an electric vehicle and without that access to low cost energy, it’s just becoming rapidly less and less practical.”

He also has concerns for his friends with small businesses, because the credit would only apply to residential tenants in rental properties, not commercial tenants.

“I think that the only thing that makes sense is to continue to allow onsite netting of power for all tenants, commercial and residential,” Draper said. “I think the proposed rule for residential strikes a really good balance between providing benefits to residential tenants who are – many of us – living paycheck to paycheck, but also provides a small amount of relief to the utilities in terms of them being able to provide less compensation for the [power] generation.”

More than that, he said more solar is needed for a healthier planet. He worries this rule change will set California further back on its clean energy goals.

“I've got kids,” he said. “The world they live in hinges on us making the right decisions now.”

What schools say 

With already extremely tight margins, school districts across the state have raised alarm bells about the effects of the proposed decision. They’re particularly concerned about the changes that would require them to pay the full retail price for electricity, even when using their own energy generated onsite.

Solar panels on the top of Playa Vista Elementary School.

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“These unfair practices help utility companies and hurt students,” L.A. Unified School District wrote in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “Rising energy costs will make it harder for Los Angeles Unified [to] reach its climate goals, and these costs will come out of our classroom, hurting our ability to reduce emissions, electrify our schools, and invest [in] safe and healthy learning environments for our children.”

Schools are being mandated by state law to electrify school buses and add solar panels, among other things. Solar installation costs come out of their facilities budgets, but the state doesn’t have an ongoing funding source for school bonds that power those budgets — that’s why we see school bond measures on our ballots every few years.

Solar panels in a parking lot outside South East High School, an L.A. Unified School District campus in South Gate. (Photo courtesy of LAUSD)

At the same time, to receive financial benefits under the new proposal, schools would need to install battery storage for each meter — batteries are still expensive and new technology that would require modernizing meters on their campuses. But the state only provides funding for modernization every 25 years, said Nancy Chaires Espinoza, executive director of advocacy group the School Energy Coalition.

“California’s over 10,000 schools are critical to the state’s ability to meet its clean energy goals,” Espinoza wrote in an email to LAist. “We are excited to be a part of this transition. We simply ask that new mandates be feasible for us to implement and adequately financed to avoid further depleting our resources for educating students.”

The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.

Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.

The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.

"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."

The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.

But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.

"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.

"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers." 

LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.

According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.

"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.

The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.

Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.

The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.

Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.

What we know about the criminal case

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.

Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.

In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

What's next

Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.

Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.

Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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