The heavens will power Grace Cathedral — with help from The City — if supervisors vote to bankroll solar-panel installations, according to an environmental and religious leader who joined others Tuesday in endorsing the program. The City’s public utilities commissioners Tuesday unanimously endorsed the proposed solar incentive program, announced last month by Mayor Gavin Newsom. If approved by the Board of Supervisors, the program will provide grants of up to $10,000 per building to help meet solar-panel installation costs. “We’ll be taking advantage of it,” the Rev. Sally Bingham, environment chair of the diocese of California and president of California Interfaith Power and Light, told commissioners before their vote. “We are looking right now at putting solar on our Grace Cathedral roof at the top of Nob Hill.”

San Francisco Chronicle

The Coast Guard is asking for the public's help with the oil spill that has fouled San Francisco Bay and local beaches. No government agency has put out calls for volunteers, but that information will eventually be posted online at www.owcn.org. People interested in volunteering with the cleanup should not call any of the numbers, as the high level of calls has made it difficult to disseminate information, officials said today. Enviornmental group Baykeeper is collecting a list of interested volunteers via their Web site, www.baykeeper.org.