On Dec. 21, 2023, Gov. Janet Mills took a tour of the damage caused by the flooding of the Kennebec River in Skowhegan after a devastating wind and rain storm. (via Office of Gov. Janet Mills)
The first bill filed in Maine’s 132nd Legislature is a bipartisan measure aimed to strengthen the ability of Maine communities, homeowners, businesses and emergency response personnel to withstand future storms.
The legislation, sponsored by Democratic and Republican leadership on behalf of Gov. Janet Mills, follows the interim recommendations from the Maine Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission, which Mills established by executive order last spring in response to the series of severe storms that caused an estimated $90 million in damage to public infrastructure across Maine.
Last session, lawmakers included $60 million for storm relief in the state’s supplemental budget, funding Mills had initially wanted to be provided through a separate, emergency measure.
“Last year, my administration and the Legislature made the largest investment in storm recovery and resilience in Maine history,” Mills wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “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.”
Seeking federal funds and existing fee-based funding through the state’s Bureau of Insurance, LD 1 would create three new initiatives.
One would be known as the Home Resiliency Program, operated by the Bureau of Insurance, which would offer grants of up to $15,000 to homeowners for projects to make their homes more resistant to damage from severe weather events. According to the initial proposal, the program would be funded by a one-time transfer of $15 million from the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation.
“The Bureau of Insurance welcomes the opportunity to put these funds into the hands of Maine consumers to help them better protect their homes from extreme weather,” Superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance Bob Carey wrote in a statement.
The bill would also create a State Resilience Office within the Maine Office of Community Affairs, funded through a five-year federal grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This office would be tasked to support flood and storm damage prevention and public safety. In the future, the office would require an annual transfer of available balances from the Bureau of Insurance to the State Resilience Fund.
Samantha Horn, director of the Maine Office of Community Affairs, said that the governor’s bill would provide Maine communities with better information and effective strategies to help them take control of their futures in the face of extreme weather, especially as many communities continue to grapple with the damage from the storms last winter.
The third main component of the bill focuses on supporting the Maine Emergency Management Agency, whose director, Pete Rogers, announced his support of the measure on Tuesday.
The bill would do this by establishing a new state fund with $750,000 matching funds to leverage the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “Safeguarding Tomorrow through On-going Risk Mitigation Revolving Loan Fund.” It would also shore up existing reserves by adding $10 million in the State Disaster Recovery Fund for matching to secure other federal dollars and dedicating $800,000 to improve the state’s emergency communications systems.
“A year ago, severe storms ravaged wharves and properties in my district and throughout the state,” House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “I am co-sponsoring this legislation because it will allow the people of my community and all of Maine to prepare their properties to withstand future storm damage and reduce their insurance premiums without drawing from the general fund by using funds from an existing agency program.”
Other co-sponsors echoed a desire to ensure resources are available when disaster strikes, especially for Maine’s heritage industries.
“In my family, we always say ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst,’” Senate President Mattie Daughtry (D-Brunswick) wrote in a statement. “To quickly respond to increasingly intense and unpredictable climate-related disasters, we need a response plan in place before the devastation even occurs.”
The Maine Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission is expected to release the state’s first long-term infrastructure resilience plan in May, building on its November interim recommendations.
The storm preparedness bill is one of more than 100 bills lawmakers have already filed as cloture, the deadline for submitting bills to the Revisor’s Office, approaches on Friday.
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