Preserving Maine for Our Children and Grandchildren

August 2, 2024

When I took office five and a half years ago, I promised the people of Maine that we would take action to protect our state, our people, our environment, and our economy from the dangers of climate change, and we would fight to preserve this special place that we call home for the benefit of our children and grandchildren, because the stakes could not be higher.

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.

You know, Maine's climate, like the rest of the world's, is changing. Monday, July 22, 2024 was the hottest day ever on the planet Earth. The waters of the Gulf of Maine are warming faster than almost any other water body in the world.

Ocean waters are rising, pushing tides higher. Storms are more frequent and more severe. Look no further than this past winter, when three devastating storms caused more than $90 million in damage to public infrastructure and millions more in damage to private homes and businesses. And they took the lives of four Maine people. These wild storms impacted our environment, our communities, our people, and our economy.

That's why I've made fighting climate change a cornerstone of my administration. We created the Maine Climate Council, we issued a climate action plan, and we've dedicated millions of federal and state dollars to making that plan a reality. From weatherizing homes, to installing heat pumps, to embracing renewable energy, to building better, stronger infrastructure that will withstand future storms. In fact, earlier this year, I proposed, and the legislature authorized, the largest investment in state history to rebuild from last winter's storms. And I've established a new commission of contractors, engineers and others, that is now traveling across Maine and developing a new resilience plan for our state.

That work is crucial. But what's also crucial is having the resources to get the work done. That's where the Biden-Harris administration comes in.

On July 26, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that my administration had won a significant climate resilience grant. $69 million. The White House's National Climate Advisor and other officials came to Maine to announce that with me, and with Senator King, and Congresswoman Pingree down on the Portland working waterfront. The money comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden and Vice President Harris pushed for, and Senator King, Congresswoman Pingree and Congressman Golden supported.

With this money, we're going to move even more aggressively to protect our state, our working waterfronts, our roads, and culverts, and bridges, from the impacts of these storms. We will expand our efforts to work with cities and towns across Maine through our Community Resilience Partnership, to make them safer from extreme weather, from sea level rise, from flooding, rivers, and severe heat, and other climate impacts.

During one extreme storm in January, the Crowley Island Causeway, which connects the village of Corea and Crowley Island in Gouldsboro, was flooded with at least four feet of seawater. Town officials cleaned up the debris and patched up the road, but they knew that damage was a wake-up call. Losing access to the island poses a serious risk not only to its residents, but to the commercial fishermen who use that causeway to move hundreds of thousands of dollars in bait, fuel, supplies, and seafood. Gouldsboro received a grant through our Community Resilience Partnership to redesign the causeway and other coastal roads to be better able to withstand these storms.

In addition to expanding our Community Resilience Partnership to more towns across Maine, we will also focus on strengthening working waterfront infrastructure for our fishermen and aquaculture industries.

This support is vital and I thank President Biden, Vice President Harris, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and members of our congressional delegation for advocating for these resources and for delivering these important monies to Maine.

With these state and federal investments, we will protect the health of our people, the health of our environment, and the health of our economy for every generation that calls the state of Maine home.

This is Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.