November 13, 2007 (LPAC)--This morning President Bush vetoed a $150 billion Appropriations bill to fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, complaining that the bill contained too much "pork." Included in that "pork," is $2.4 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that provides grants to low-income households to help pay Winter energy bills. Testimony delivered to the House Education and Labor Committee, this afternoon, made clear that the $2.4 billion in the bill for LIHEAP--although more than $600 million above President Bush's Scrooge-like request--is nowhere near enough to provide the expected needs for this coming Winter. Guy Caruso, the director of the Energy Information Administration, testified that households heating with oil can expect to pay, on average, 26% more for heat this Winter than last; household using propane, 20% more; and households heating with natural, gas 11% more.

The skyrocketing prices mean that the average LIHEAP grant buys less than it did. Mark Wolfe, the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, told the committee in 2003, the average LIHEAP grant was able to pay 36.7% of the heating costs of a household heating with oil, but that has now declined to 20.8%. For natural gas that percentage has declined from 58.2% to 37.6% and similarly for propane and electricity. Over the same period, the number of households receiving assistance has grown from 4.6 million to 5.8 million, and the average grant has actually declined from $349 to $305. Yet Bush, with his veto, wanted only $1.8 billion for LIHEAP this Winter, compared to $3.1 billion last year.

Wolfe also reported that most states expect a further increase in requests for assistance this Winter, including from people who've never asked for help before, but the states do not have the money to meet this need. The result in human terms, as Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D- N.Y.), the chairman of the Healthy Families and Communities subcommittee pointed out, is that some families with children may have to choose between heat and putting food on the table; some elderly may choose between heat and buying prescription drugs that they need, or may set the heat at a dangerously low temperature, and so on, with the consequent effects on public health. Agencies that administer the program have a more difficulties because of the lack of resources to hire and adequately compensate staff who are needed to serve households requesting assistance.