BATH — The state’s updated climate plan calls for preparing for severe storms, increasing the use of electric vehicles and encouraging the consumption of Maine grown food, state officials said Thursday.

Gov. Janet Mills said Maine will stay the course regardless of any actions taken by the incoming Trump administration to reduce funding or change national priorities.

“Maine will use this climate action plan to continue our vital work with national, regional and state partners to tackle climate change no matter who is in the White House,” she said during the formal release of the updated Maine Won’t Wait plan at Morse High School in Bath.

Part of that work is through the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 23 governors who represent more than half of the country’s population and 60% of the U.S. economy, Mills said. 

For more than a year, the 39-member Maine Climate Council worked to update the plan, particularly considering three major storms that flooded inland towns and battered the coast, causing more than $90 million in public infrastructure damage.

Mills told reporters that she’s confident the state can press forward without support from the federal government.

“This is not simply a matter of money, of federal funds, it’s a matter of courage, common sense and creativity,” Mills said.

She said the severe storms in Maine in December 2023 and January 2024 provided proof to doubters that climate change is happening. And she mentioned severe storms now hitting the West Coast.

“It’s happening in red states, green states, blue states, it doesn’t matter who is in the White House,” she said. “It’s happening and we know it and we’re dealing with it here and now.”

Hannah Pingree, director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, said a major theme of the updated plan is on disaster planning and resilience, encouraging the use of electric vehicles, reducing food waste and trash disposal, land conservation and ensuring that by 2030, 30% of the food consumed in Maine is grown or harvested here.

With regard to the electric vehicle goals, Mills emphasized that the target of 150,000 electric vehicles on Maine roads by 2030 is not a mandate, but a goal.

“Let me be clear,” she said. “Nothing in this report is a mandate of any sort on anybody. These are goals and designs to help us reduce our carbon emissions.”

The electric vehicle goal is meant to address one of the two major sources of carbon emissions — transportation and housing, Mills said.

Pingree said the state is also looking to create jobs and build more affordable housing, along with continuing the push for electric heat pumps.

The clean energy economy in Maine employs more than 15,000 people, putting the state more than halfway toward the governor’s goal of 30,000 clean energy jobs by 2030, according to the governor’s office.

In addition, Maine has experienced the largest yearly drop in home heating oil reliance in more than a decade, which the administration says is correlated to the increased use of heat pumps that run on electricity.

Maine Conservation Voters issued a statement saying that state-level action is imperative.

“In the face of federal headwinds, an ambitious state climate action plan is a necessity,” said Maureen Drouin, executive director. “Maine Won’t Wait recognizes that we have a responsibility to ensure a clean and healthy environment for our children, that lands, waters and wildlife are protected, and that we strengthen critical infrastructure in the face of rising sea levels and extreme weather events.”

And the Natural Resources Council of Maine said the plan is a chance for Maine to show the rest of the county that it’s possible to work together “to create new home-grown clean energy industries.”

“The new Climate Action Plan provides an ambitious and achievable pathway for meeting Maine’s climate goals while creating jobs, saving money on energy costs, and making our communities more resilient for all Maine people,” Jack Shapiro, NRCM’s climate and clean energy director, said in a statement.