WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud announced Wednesday that Maine will be receiving an additional $2.6 million in Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, training program funding.

The emergency federal funding was released by the U.S. Department of Labor from the TAA reserve account to the Maine Department of Labor to avoid the shutdown of the TAA program in Maine. The delegation requested the funding from U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao on March 8.

“We applaud the quick response by Secretary Chao to get this critical additional TAA federal funding to help those Maine workers who need it most. The overwhelming loss of manufacturing jobs that the state has experienced in recent years has placed an unexpected strain on the TAA program and, without this emergency funding, those workers who are in greatest need of assistance would be unfairly shut out,” Snowe, Collins, Allen and Michaud said in a joint statement.

In a joint letter to Secretary Chao, Maine’s congressional delegation cited the “sharp reduction in available funding” – a roughly 22 percent decrease – that Maine has received under the fiscal year 2004 TAA program. Under the new allocation formula, the U.S. Department of Labor issued $3.1 million to support the TAA program in Maine. The delegation stated that enrollment in Maine’s TAA program this year has been significantly higher than in previous years, causing Maine to have already exhausted its allocated TAA funding.

“As a delegation, we are gravely concerned about the continuation of the TAA program in Maine,” the letter read.