Making Available Funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 2006

MAKING AVAILABLE FUNDS FOR THE LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, 2006
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Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I commend you and Senator Snowe for working so hard on this very vital issue.

I want my colleagues to understand exactly what is at stake here.

Early Tuesday morning, my State suffered a terrible tragedy--three people, including a woman and her 10-year-old son, died when their house caught fire and burned to the ground. There was the most deadly fire in Maine in 6 years. They lived in Limestone, ME, a town in northern Maine. On the night of the fire, temperatures were below zero. The family had run out of heating oil, and as a result, was using wood stoves to provide the heat. According to the firefighters, the fire started near one of the wood stoves in the kitchen.

This is literally a matter of life and death.

At Christmastime, when I was home in my hometown of Caribou, ME, two elderly women were hospitalized with hypothermia.

This is not theoretical. It is not theoretical when there is ice in the toilet and when our elderly and low-income are at risk of illness, disease, and, yes, even death because they cannot afford the high cost of home heating oil.

The least we can do in a country as wealthy as ours is to provide some modest assistance. And those who say that the winter is almost over, come to where I am from in northern Maine. Believe me, there is a lot more winter to come.

Maine has run out of its LIHEAP funding. It is time for us to provide this modest help.

Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague from Maine.

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