Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am here to speak about the urgent need for the Trump administration to release $4 billion in LIHEAP funding. LIHEAP, as you know, is the low-income plan. It is absolutely critical that that money be distributed to the States so the States can distribute it to the citizens who need it. We are in the cold weather season and getting money out after the cold weather season does not help keep people warm.

LIHEAP funding enjoys broad support, and that is because, in the Presiding Officer's State and in mine, folks in the winter who are on the margins financially, literally, can't get by unless they have access to this funding.

So here we are, the heating season is upon us, and the LIHEAP funding is stuck and not being distributed.

This is an absolute responsibility of the Trump administration, and there is no--no--excuse for withholding the funding. It just means that people who are cold are going to be cold and terrified, and they have no confidence about their ability to stay warm.

It is getting cold in Vermont. You know, most families who use LIHEAP funding, they make about 150 percent of the poverty level, that is about $23,000 a year. You know, the cost of home heating fuel is between 3 and 4 bucks a gallon, right now. That help is essential.

In Vermont, around 26,000 people rely on LIHEAP to afford heat. And by the way, for folks in the warm weather parts of our country, it helps on air-conditioning, which is vital. And as the Presiding Officer knows, the number of people who are dying of heat exposure has been increasing, alarmingly. So this is the call to the Trump administration: Do your job.

Now, Secretary Kennedy has a legal responsibility to disburse the current LIHEAP funding, and it is illegal for him to withhold those funds as well as really pretty cruel.

The reality is that this summer we in Congress came together, on a bipartisan basis, to increase and to pass the $4 billion in funding for the program. And, again, I emphasize, it is not a red State, blue State deal. It is not a Republican, Democratic deal. It is a person who is in a home, doesn't have money, and is cold. That is what it is about.

So I am calling on President Trump and Secretary Kennedy to stop stalling and to act with alacrity and release the LIHEAP funding for the benefit of the people in the State of Vermont and in every State in this country who depend on it.

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