Governor Janet Mills has proposed a major bill to help prepare Maine for future extreme weather made worse by climate change.
The measure is sponsored by Republican and Democratic leaders in the house and senate.
It comes a year after repeated storms battered inland and coastal Maine and the state invested $60 million to rebuild and recover from intense winter storms.
"That funding was significant, but it’s clear that it was only a down payment on the critical recovery and resilience work Maine must do to prepare our people and communities for the storms we know will become more frequent and intense in the years ahead," Mills said in a press release.
Last year's storms were a wake up call to people across Maine that the state was vulnerable to extreme weather, said Hannah Pingree, Director of the Governor's Office of Policy Innovation and the Future. A warming climate fueled by greenhouse gas pollution from burning fossil fuels is expected to increase precipitation and make future storms more damaging and dangerous.
"Major storms know no partisan boundaries and I would say folks on both sides of the aisle understand that Maine needs to do more to prepare and support communities as they recover," Pingree said in an interview.
The bill, LD 1, would provide a one-time $15 million fund for grants to help homeowners pay for improvements to withstand flooding and storm damage.
It would also add $10 million to provide matching funds to secure federal funds for currently-declared disasters. Local governments could also access a $750,000 revolving loan fund to compete for federal mitigation programs.
And another $800,000 would be invested to improve emergency communications and training.
The bill would also establish a State Resilience Office within the newly formed Maine Office of Community Affairs. That agency would oversee a new Flood-Ready Maine program to modernize data on flood risk and increase the number of flood policy use in Maine.
Mills' measure would enact some of the interim recommendations recently made by the Maine Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission, Pingree said.
"There’s no silver bullet for how we plan for all the storms ahead but I do think this bill is a good first step," she said.
Maine Public’s Climate Desk is made possible by Androscoggin bank, with additional support from Evergreen Home Performance, Bigelow Laboratory, & Lee Auto Malls.
