Governor Janet T. Mills (D), Addresses the 200 or so at the First Aannual Housing Summit at Oean Gateway Earlier This Year..
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Last Friday, July 26, 2024, Governor Janet T. Mills (D) announced that Maine has been awarded a $69 million climate resilsience grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to protect Maine’s communities, environment and working waterfronts from extreme storms, flooding and rising sea levels.
The historic Federal grant awarded to the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, represents one of the largest investments in climate resilience ever in Maine history and is one of just two grant awards from the Federal agency on the Eastern coast
Federal officials, Ali Zaidi, the White House National Climate Advisor and Dr. Richard Spinrad, Administator of the National Oceanic and Atmmospheric Administration (NOAA), traveled to Maine last week to announce that 19 projects – including Maine’s – have been awarded a total of $575 million for transformational climate through NOAA’s highly competitive Climate Resilience Grant Challenge, which was funded by a nearly $6 billion total investment under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Governor and Federal officials were joined at Friday’s Portland waterfront event by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, who supported the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Mills Administration will use the $69 million in grant funding to accelerate and expand its leadership on climate action by working with communities to take strong , pragmatic steps to address vulnerabilities, protect people and ensure critical infrastructure is prepared for future impacts. Focus areas of the grant include:
EXPANDING support to communities through the Community Resilience Partnership; SUPPORTING investments in critical infrastructure projects through the Maine Infrastructure Adaption Fund (MIAF),; EXPANDING ongoing efforts to preserve and protect vital working waterfronts and businesses, and finally, ESTABLISHING a resiliemce pffoce within state government dedicated to leading cross agency efforts to enhance climate resilience across the state.
“This unprecedented Federal grant will help accelerate efforts to strengthn the resiliece of Maine people to climate effects, especially extreme storms like those our state experienced this past winter,” said Hannah Pingree, Director of the Governor’s Office of Public Innovation and the Future and co-chair of the Maine Climate Council. ‘With this funding, we will improve our ability to protect our state’s people, communities and infrastructure from future harm, ensure the preservation of our critical working waterfronts, expand our efforts to mitigate environmental damage and make cllimate resilience an urgent priority for Maine going forward.’