Establishes the Grid Resilience Matching Fund. Appropriates moneys in the fund to the State Department of Energy to provide state matching funds for federal grant funding for grid resilience projects.
All moneys in the fund are continuously appropriated to the State Department of Energy for the purposes of providing state matching funds to leverage federal grant funding for grid resilience projects, and for related administrative costs of the department.
There are four grant available:
1 Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants Program: This program is designed to strengthen and modernize America’s power grid against wildfires, extreme weather, and other natural disasters.
2. Smart Grid Grants: This program invests up to $3 billion ($600 million/year for Fiscal Years 2022-2026) in grid resilience technologies and solutions.
3. Grid Resilience Utility and Industry Grants: This program offers up to $2.5 billion over five years ($500 million/year FY 22-26) to support the modernization of the electric grid to reduce impacts due to extreme weather and natural disasters.
4. Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants: Administered by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), this program provides non-competitive funding to states, territories, and federally recognized Indian tribes to improve the resilience of their electric grids. States and tribes will then award these funds to a diverse set of projects, with priority given to efforts that generate the greatest community benefit.
This bill essentially takes advantage of a Biden grant program. It creates a pot of money for the Governor to fund more wind and solar farms, or install more government run charging stations, or develop technology to spy on us through the smart meters we have on our houses. It gives her another avenue to fight the Trump Administration to further her intent to shut down fossil fuel use in Oregon. All of which has very little benefit to Oregonians. The bill gives no limitation for its use to areas we would benefit from.