NH Delegation Welcomes Nearly $7 Million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funding to Strengthen New Hampshire’s Power Grid
(Washington, DC)— U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) announced today with Congresswoman Annie Kuster (NH-02) and Congressman Chris Pappas (NH-01) that New Hampshire will receive a Department of Energy (DOE) award totaling $6,619,797 to help modernize the state’s power grid. The funding will be used to invest in disadvantaged communities, bolster grid resilience for extreme weather and other disruptive events and provide additional workforce development and training opportunities. New Hampshire will hold a competitive selection process to identify projects in need of this funding. These grants were funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Senators Shaheen and Hassan helped negotiate and the full delegation supported.
“As the climate crisis continues contributing to more severe and extreme weather events, it’s vital for New Hampshire to secure the power grid from natural disasters and other disruptions,” said Senator Shaheen, a lead negotiator on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. “This grant funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which I helped negotiate, will help us accomplish this goal and help put our state’s energy resilience on stronger footing.”
“Granite Staters have increasingly seen extreme weather, from flooding to snowstorms, damage their communities and cause power outages,” said Senator Hassan. “While we have worked to secure federal disaster relief resources to rebuild, it is also important to look to the future and revamp our electric grid to withstand future severe weather and increase our usage of renewable energy. I helped negotiate the bipartisan infrastructure law to make funding like this possible, and I am glad that New Hampshire is getting this funding to invest in our climate resiliency and clean energy economy.
“We saw an alarming uptick in extreme weather events and record flooding across New Hampshire this year – it’s essential that we invest in grid resilience to ease the impacts of climate change on our state,” said Congresswoman Kuster. “I’m pleased to see these federal resources heading to New Hampshire to help our rural communities prepare for and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters and bring our energy grid into the 21st century.”
“New Hampshire has been no stranger to extreme weather in recent months,” said Congressman Pappas, “and we know that the physical damage and power failures caused by these events threaten the health and well-being of Granite Staters. I’m glad to see funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law being delivered to our state to improve the resilience of our grid, while providing training and development opportunities to workers across the state.”
Shaheen and Hassan helped negotiate the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), which provides a $550 billion investment in our nation’s core infrastructure priorities – including roads and bridges, rail, transit, ports, airports, the electric grid, water systems and broadband. Shaheen leads legislative action in the Senate to deliver energy infrastructure investments, particularly for clean energy and energy efficiency projects. Shaheen successfully included key provisions of her energy efficiency bill – the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act (ESIC) – with Senator Rob Portman (R-OH). She also included the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Act, the Promoting American Energy Jobs Act and the Heat Efficiency through Applied Technology (HEAT) Act.
Earlier this month, Shaheen celebrated the announcement that the DOE opened applications for $400 million in federal funding to help states and territories adopt and implement building energy codes that reduce utility bills, increase efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make buildings more resilient to climate disasters.
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