As part of bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Montana's U.S. Senator Jon Tester has secured more than $14 million from the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants program to strengthen Montana’s energy grid against wildfires and extreme weather events.
The funding will reduce the vulnerability to disruptive events and the consequences of outages to community facilities and critical infrastructure. It will also be used to limit wildfire ignition from transmission and distribution equipment and increase the skilled workforce in Montana to operate and maintain resilience measures.
Tester’s bipartisan infrastructure law is anticipated to create more than 800,000 American jobs and lower costs for businesses by making targeted investments to strengthen the nation without raising taxes on working families.
Tester also secured $2.82 billion for Montana’s roads, highways, and bridges; $2.5 billion to complete all authorized Indian water rights settlements; $1 billion to complete all authorized rural water projects through the Bureau of Reclamation; $65 billion to deploy broadband to areas across the country that lack internet access and additionally make online connectivity affordable; and $3.37 billion to reduce wildfire risk nationwide, among others.
