In January, two very powerful storms brought rain, wind, and flooding that ravaged our state, damaged coastal communities and working waterfronts, and altered the very landscape of our iconic coast.

Hello, this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.

We saw storms that swept fish houses into the sea and kicked pilings out from once-sturdy piers and broke dunes and breakwaters and chewed up roads and seawalls, sometimes wiped storekeepers dry of stock, and changed the very landscape of our coast.

Because of all that, this week, I wrote to President Biden to formally request a Major Disaster Declaration to help Maine’s eight coastal counties recover from the back-to-back storms of January. Most of the estimated $70 million in public infrastructure damage was in Washington, Hancock, Waldo, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, Cumberland, and York counties. Our coastal counties.

If President Biden approves my request, we can use federal funding to repair the damaged roads and bridges, as well as public infrastructure, such as public buildings in those hard-hit counties.

In addition to public assistance, I’ve asked for help for individual families and telling the president that hundreds of people in our marine and aquaculture industries are now fighting to sustain their family businesses because they depend so much on working waterfronts, some of which were destroyed in the storms. 

Our thriving marine economy is at risk unless we receive every federal resource that is available to support the full recovery of our communities.

While we await the president’s response to my request, some technical and financial assistance is available now, and you can view that on our flood relief website at maine.gov/flood. 

My Administration will continue to do everything we can to support the recovery of our coastal communities and the industries and families that rely on them.

In addition to requesting a Major Disaster Declaration, we have introduced a bill, LD 2030, to streamline the permitting of certain activities under the Natural Resources Protection Act to make it easier for Maine communities to rebuild their waterfronts. 

We have proposed emergency legislation also for $50 million in state funds for the Maine Infrastructure Adaptation Fund to rebuild waterfront infrastructure, starting as soon as that bill is passed. 

We’re making $2 million in Land for Maine’s Future grants available for working waterfront projects that preserve access to commercial fishing. 

And, we are making $300,000 in federal grants available for coastal infrastructure projects to make our communities more resilient to climate change. 

As someone with deep roots in Stonington, where my ancestors fished for a living, I know how important our coastal communities are to our economy, to our culture, to our very identity as a people and as a state.

And I will continue to do all I can to support people whose livelihoods depend on working waterfronts. We will recover from these devastating storms, and we will build more resilient communities that can withstand whatever storms may come. 

We will rebuild the broken roads, wharves, and bridges and fortify our state against the ravages of unpredictable storms and the predictability of climate change.

This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening. 

WHEREAS, Maine's agricultural community is a cornerstone of our great state and provides numerous benefits to Maine's residents and visitors; and

WHEREAS, Maine's agricultural sector fuels the state's economy, contributing more than $3.6 billion annually, and employing tens of thousands of people with over 1 million acres in agricultural use; and

WHEREAS, the State of Maine has long been a haven for writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, poets, dancers, folk artists, culinary artists, and creative thinkers of all kinds; and

WHEREAS, Maine enjoys a worldwide reputation for the quality, quantity, and variety of its cultural community; and

WHEREAS, Maine features a broad and significant array of historic and architecturally significant structures; and

WHEREAS, women of every race, ethnicity, class, religion, and age have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our state and our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways; and

WHEREAS, women have played and continue to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of life by constituting a significant portion of the labor force both inside and outside of the home; and

WHEREAS, on July 26, 1819, the citizens of Maine voted decisively in support of Maine separating from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and becoming an independent state; and

WHEREAS, the United States Congress received Maine’s petition for statehood and voted affirmatively to accept Maine as the 23rd State of the United States; and

WHEREAS, U.S. Secretary of State James Monroe notified Maine that it would formally and legally be an independent state beginning on March 15, 1820; and

WHEREAS, the National Council on Problem Gambling and the Maine Council on Problem Gambling have designated March 2024 as Problem Gambling Awareness Month; and WHEREAS, problem gambling is a public health issue affecting Mainers of all ages, races and ethnic backgrounds and the 2021 Survey of Problem Gambling Services in the United States estimated that 24,647 people in Maine have a gambling problem; and WHEREAS, problem gambling is treatable, and treatment is effective in minimizing harm to individuals, families, and society as a whole;

WHEREAS, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children and is detected in more than 15,000 of our country's sons and daughters every year; and

WHEREAS, the State of Maine has one of the highest rates of childhood cancer in the nation, with 60 Maine children diagnosed with cancer annually; and

WHEREAS, thanks to ongoing advances in research and treatment, the five-year survival rate for all childhood cancers has climbed from less than 50 percent to 80 percent over the last several decades; and