American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 - Continued
Floor Speech
AMERICAN HOUSING RESCUE AND FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT OF 2008--Continued -- (Senate - July 10, 2008)
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ENERGY
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I want to take a moment to speak about one of the most important issues facing our country right now, and that is the energy crisis, in terms of the high cost of energy and the fact that people will be suffering very significantly this coming winter--in fact, this summer--if we do not address it.
In that regard, on June 24, I introduced S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act, to provide immediate relief to millions of senior citizens, families with children, and the disabled, who are struggling to pay their home energy bills. Specifically, this bill would nearly double the funding for the highly successful Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly called LIHEAP, in fiscal year 2008, taking LIHEAP from $2.57 billion to $5.1 billion, a total increase of over $2.5 billion.
I thank Majority Leader Reid for completing the rule XIV process for this important piece of legislation and placing it directly on the Senate calendar. My understanding is that we will have this bill on the floor before we recess for the August vacation. It is important we do that, and I thank Senator Harry Reid very much for allowing us to move forward in that direction.
I also thank the 26 Senators who are cosponsors of this tripartisan legislation. This bill absolutely is a tripartisan piece of legislation. At this point, we have 18 Democrats on board, we have 8 Republicans on board, and I expect more will be coming on in the coming days and weeks. I thank Senators Obama, Coleman, Leahy, Smith, Durbin, Snowe, Murray, Sununu, Landrieu, Collins, Murkowski, Clinton, Lugar, Cantwell, Gregg, Kerry, Cardin, Kennedy, Schumer, Brown, Klobuchar, Menendez, Casey, Bingaman, Stabenow, and Lautenberg for their support.
This legislation not only has strong bipartisan support here in the Senate, it is also moving in the House, and it also has been endorsed by numerous groups all across this country, including the AARP, the National Grange, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Community Action Foundation, the National Association of State Energy Officials, the Alliance For Rural America, the Northeast Public Power Association, the National Consumer Law Center on behalf of its low-income clients, the Edison Electric Institute, the National Fuel Funds Network, and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America.
I think we are going to show more and more support in coming weeks, but there is a widespread understanding that we are facing a crisis in this country and that the President and the Congress have to act.
Let me read a support letter I received from the AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. As you know, the AARP represents over 39 million Americans, and this is what the AARP said.
AARP fully supports the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act. This legislation will provide needed relief for many older persons who may not receive assistance--despite their eligibility--due to a lack of funding. Older Americans who are more susceptible to hypothermia and heat stroke know the importance of heating and cooling their homes. They often skimp on other necessities to pay their utility bills. However, today's escalating energy prices and the Nation's unpredictable and extreme temperatures are adding to the growing economic hardships faced by seniors. LIHEAP is underfunded and unable to meet the energy assistance needs of the program's eligible households.
I thank the AARP very much for their strong support of this legislation.
Let me also quote from a very recent New York Times editorial. This is what the New York Times said the other day.
A bill just introduced in the Senate would provide about $2.5 billion under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Half would be released to the States to help low-income residents pay their energy bills and half would sit in a contingency fund that could be tapped at the discretion of the President. When the bill comes up for a vote, likely later this month, Congress should approve it and President Bush should sign it into law. As the economy slows and oil prices rise, helping Americans who cannot afford to heat their homes is a matter of public health and safety as well as a moral imperative. People without adequate heat are vulnerable to illness, and people struggling to pay the heating bills may be tempted to skimp on medicines and even food. No one should have to choose between heating and eating. If they act this summer, as they must, before the Presidential and congressional campaigns send everyone home, Congress and President Bush can help make sure that nobody has to make that choice.
That is from the New York Times, and I appreciate the support of the New York Times on this issue.
Make no mistake about it, we have an energy emergency in Vermont and all across this country, and it is about time the President and the Congress treated this as the emergency it is. As many of my colleagues understand, the price of heating oil skyrocketed last winter, making it extremely difficult for some of my constituents and people all across this country to stay alive, especially when the temperature dropped well below zero. Next winter will even be worse.
At this time last year, heating oil prices were about $2.50 a gallon. Today, they are about $4.50 a gallon. Fuel dealers in Vermont are telling me that if this trend continues, heating oil prices could surpass $5 a gallon by December. I must tell you, Madam President, that all across my State people are very worried about how they will in fact be able to adequately heat their homes next winter.
Meanwhile, LIHEAP funding is 23 percent less than it was 2 years ago, completely eviscerating the purchasing power of this extremely important program. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the Federal Government spent more money on LIHEAP 20 years ago than it is spending today. So we have a real crisis we have got to address.
It is not an exaggeration to say this is a life-and-death situation. People use that phrase often, but in this sense we are describing the reality facing a number of people. According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 1,000 Americans all across this country died from hypothermia in their own homes from 1992 to 2002, the latest figures we have available. Over 1,000 Americans died from hypothermia. In other words, they froze to death in the United States because they were unable to afford to heat their homes. How many of these deaths were preventable? Well, the answer is, all of them, according to the CDC.
We will probably not know for several years how many Americans died last winter because they could not afford to heat their homes, but clearly one death is too many. And everything being equal, if we do not act, I think we can reasonably expect the number of people dying of hypothermia in this country will only go up. If heating oil even approaches $5 a gallon by next winter, we will have a public health emergency throughout the northern tier of this country, and this is something we have to address.
I wish also to point out that, although I come from a cold weather State--and I hope and expect all of my colleagues understand this--LIHEAP does not only help constituents in the northern part of our country stay warm in the winter, it also helps people in the South and the West stay cool in the summer. Right now, many people in the southern and western States are suffering with temperatures frequently soaring past 100 degrees while their electricity prices are rapidly increasing.
I was in Nevada last week, and the temperature there was something like 110 to 115 degrees. That is hot. I cannot imagine a frail or elderly person, somebody who is ill, trying to survive in that kind of weather. Those people are going to need help today as much as people in the North will need help when the winter comes.
Recently, USA Today ran a headline on its front page and it said:
Price jolt: Electricity bills going up, up, up.
That was a headline, front-page story. According to this story:
Utilities across the USA are raising power prices up to 29 percent, mostly to pay for soaring fuel cost. ..... The spikes come after rising fuel prices already have driven up utility bills nearly 30 percent the past 5 years, the sharpest jump since the 1970s energy crisis.
Let me give an example of why LIHEAP funding is vital, right now, for these hot-weather States. Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Florida have either exhausted all their LIHEAP funding or are on the verge of running out of funds. In other words, they will have absolutely no support from the Federal Government to help millions of senior citizens on fixed incomes, low-income families with kids or the disabled stay cool this winter. They are running out of funds right now.
As I have indicated, with the price of electricity going up and up, with the economy in the tank, people are having a harder and harder time paying their electric bills, air-conditioners are run on electricity, and if you don't have your electricity, you don't have your air-conditioner, and if you are old and you are frail and you are sick, you are in a lot of trouble.
From 1999 to 2003, over 3,400 deaths in this country were due to excessive heat. All these deaths were preventable, and air-conditioning is the best way to prevent these deaths from occurring, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In fact, more people in the United States--and this is an interesting fact that I think many people are not aware of--more people in the United States have died from the extreme heat than from floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined, since 1998.
CNN may not be in a senior citizen's bedroom when she expires because of heat exhaustion. They are there with the floods and hurricanes and cyclones and tornadoes--we understand that. But we need to reiterate that more people in the United States have died from the extreme heat than from floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government spends less money preventing these deaths from occurring than any other natural disaster we face, according to the CDC.
My point is, hurricanes and floods certainly are emergencies. I have always supported efforts to address these emergencies. I want my colleagues to know that when the weather gets 20 below in Vermont and Maine and New Hampshire, that is an emergency. When the weather gets to 110 degrees in California or Nevada, that is also an emergency. We have to act.
My legislation will begin to move us in the right direction. If this legislation becomes law, as I certainly hope it will be, the State of Arizona would receive over $24 million, the State of Kentucky would receive over $34 million, the State of Georgia would receive over $70 million, and the State of Florida would receive over $80 million to keep their residents cool this summer.
The point I am making is, I don't want anybody to think that because I represent Vermont and we are from the Northeast, that this is simply a cold-weather issue. It is not. It is an issue for every region of this country.
In addition to all that I have said, it is important to understand that tens of thousands of Americans have had their utility and natural gas service shut off this year, and millions more are in danger of having these services cut off because they are at least 1 month late in paying their bills. There is a lot of attention, obviously, on housing foreclosures that we have been focusing on. But let us not forget that as people lose their jobs, as people's wages decline, as utility bills go up, we are looking at utility cutoffs in a very dramatic way.
Increasing LIHEAP funding will allow these Americans to turn their electricity and other essential utility services back on right now so they can cool their homes this summer and heat their homes next winter. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, a record 15 million American families, or nearly 15 percent of all households, are at least 30 days overdue in paying their utility bills.
Let me conclude by thanking the 26 cosponsors, including 8 Republicans, who are onboard this legislation. Let me thank AARP and the many national organizations that are supporting this. Let me thank Senator Reid for completing the rule XIV process.
I hope very much that in a week or two, certainly before we break for the August recess, we will be voting on this legislation. I hope we win it by a very large majority.
I thank Majority Leader Reid and all my colleagues who are supporting this legislation and look forward to, in the very short term, reassuring people throughout this country that we are mindful of the impact high energy costs are having on their lives, and we are here to do something about it.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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