DeLauro Urges Increased LIHEAP Funding, Help for Most Vulnerable This Winter

Press Release

DeLauro Urges Increased LIHEAP Funding, Help for Most Vulnerable This Winter

At a press conference on Capitol Hill today, Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) joined her Senate and House colleagues to call for increased funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). At a time when the program assists only 15 percent of all eligible households, the House budget included no increase for LIHEAP in the coming year. DeLauro, a member of the House Budget Committee, and her colleagues have written the President and Republican leaders in Congress 3 times since May—twice during September alone—urging emergency LIHEAP funding.

"What our country is facing today is a home heating crisis that impacts everyone from our most vulnerable citizens to middle class families," said DeLauro. "We believe that providing assistance during a home heating crisis is a matter of urgency - a matter of values."

In addition to the stagnant LIHEAP funding in the House budget, the House-passed appropriations bill cut LIHEAP funding by $175 million. That means that even though Congress said with the Energy bill it passed in July that it could dedicate as much as $5 billion to heating assistance for our most vulnerable families, in reality it would only spend $2 billion. And that was before the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina instantly sent tens of thousands of poor families looking for shelter across the country - before we learned that heating bills will jump 50 percent for most Americans this winter. In order for the LIHEAP program to help all eligible participants this winter, the program should be funded at levels of at least $3.2 billion annually.

"The issue today is ensuring that help gets to those who need it most - whether it is seniors, veterans, or the disabled," said DeLauro. "And if the devastation following Katrina has taught us anything, it is that good and decent societies take care of their most vulnerable. We failed that test in New Orleans - but we have an opportunity to start setting things right with the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program this winter."

DeLauro joined The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association (NEADA) last month to release the group's second annual survey of the effect of rising energy costs on poor families. The study found that 1 out of 5 families reported that they went without food to heat their homes. A third reported they did not fill their prescriptions or took less than their full dose of a prescribed medicine because of their energy bills, including more than 40 percent of households with asthma, emphysema, heart disease, or stroke. According to NEADA, almost 12,000 families with a loved one serving in Iraq or Afghanistan are forced to rely on LIHEAP.

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