Apr. 22—AUGUSTA — Lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill to help Maine communities prepare for and respond to severe weather and the long-term impacts of climate change.
Gov. Janet Mills introduced the bill and is expected to sign it into law Tuesday afternoon.
It was approved 32-0 in the Senate on Tuesday after being approved in the House of Representatives last week.
The bill includes a grant program that would help residents make investments to safeguard their homes against extreme weather. It makes one-time investments in the Maine Emergency Management Agency and utilizes federal funds to establish a new state office to reduce storm damage and protect infrastructure.
The legislation, LD 1, responds to recommendations from the Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission, which Mills established last year following a series of winter storms that caused an estimated $90 million in damage to public infrastructure across the state. It is an emergency bill, which means it will take effect immediately if signed by the governor.
The bill comes with a $39 million price tag but will be funded with surplus state funds and federal funds and does not rely on general funds from the state budget.
It includes several key initiatives, the first of which would provide $15 million in one-time funding to establish the Home Resiliency Program to provide grants of up to $15,000 to homeowners to make investments to safeguard their homes against future storms.
The program would be operated by Maine’s Bureau of Insurance and would focus on reducing roof damage, basement flooding and other targeted interventions to minimize storm damage and insurance losses.
One-time funding from the Bureau of Insurance would be used to invest $10 million in the State Disaster Recovery Fund to provide matching funds to secure federal funding to respond to natural disasters, establish a new state fund to provide required matching dollars to secure federal loan funds for storm mitigation, improve emergency communications systems and to invest in two new staff members at MEMA.
The proposal would also establish a new State Resilience Office funded through a five-year federal grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support planning that reduces flood and storm damage, protects public and private infrastructure and supports public safety.
Finally, the legislation would launch a Flood-Ready Maine Program to modernize data on flood risk and make it accessible to municipal leaders and Mainers online. The program would work to improve communication to communities, businesses and residents about flood risk, and to increase the number of flood insurance policies in use in Maine.
This story will be updated.
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