US spending was tied to Alaska drilling
WASHINGTON -- The federal program to help poor families heat their homes got cut to less than half the amount originally promised by Congress, because of a flurry of late-night maneuvers on Wednesday that could leave tens of thousands of New England families struggling with skyrocketing heating bills this winter.
Congress authorized $5.1 billion earlier this year for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which provides grants to needy residents to ease heating and cooling costs. But in last-minute deals to complete spending bills in the waning hours of the Senate's 2005 session, the program was slashed to $2.16 billion for the 2006 fiscal year that began in October -- $20 million less than the amount allocated for the 2005 fiscal year and far less than the minimum $4.5 billion energy assistance officials say they need to keep poor families warm this winter.
Most states still have enough money for the program to provide some assistance to families who are currently receiving the benefit, said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association. But he said the funding cut means states won't be able to give low-income people the cash they need to deal with escalating energy costs, since heating homes this year will cost more than last year.
Four years ago, a Northeast home could be heated for an average of $600; now, heating bills can rise as high as $1,400 for the season, he said.
Further, applications to enter the program are already up 10 percent -- about 500,000 families nationwide -- and the current budget for the heating program can't cover the increase, he said. ''What we're looking at is a potential crisis in this country," Wolfe said.
About 134,000 Massachusetts households qualify for the assistance; more than 14,000 families in Boston receive the aid. The maximum benefit in Massachusetts is $765 for the season, enough for one tank of heating oil. Most households require two to four tanks to make it through the winter, according to statistics provided by aides to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
New England lawmakers in both parties fought to add an additional $2 billion in LIHEAP funds to a defense spending bill the Senate approved late Wednesday night, but the cash was removed as part of a deal to take out a separate provision on the bill that would have allowed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The House still has to approve the wartime defense package, but lawmakers don't expect any changes in the bill.
''Providing energy assistance to the poorest citizens of this country during the harsh winter months should be America's top priority, but sadly, the administration and its budget continue to leave the neediest out in the cold," Kennedy said.
Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins, both Maine Republicans, said yesterday they secured a promise from majority leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, to have a separate vote on a supplemental appropriation for LIHEAP in January. ''Given the magnitude of the situation in cold weather states from Maine to Minnesota, we felt that it would be unconscionable to leave for the year without a firm commitment to address this issue as soon as possible," Snowe said.
But even if the Senate were to approve the money in mid- January, it may not be fast enough, Wolfe said. The legislative process of getting a bill for the money approved in the House, signed by the president, and funneled through the states to needy families may mean the assistance won't arrive in time for the worst part of the winter, Wolfe said.
Representative William Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat who brokered a deal with Venezuela to provide Massachusetts residents with home heating oil at a discount, said he was ready to go back to Caracas and ask for more from President Hugo Chávez -- a nemesis of President Bush. While Bay Staters welcomed the less expensive oil, some conservatives said the deal helped Chávez score political points at the expense of the White House.
''It's an embarrassment that we're forced to seek foreign assistance. It's almost beyond comprehension," Delahunt said in an interview. While the November deal with CITGO, a US firm wholly owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, will provide about a tank of oil to 45,000 needy families, it's not enough to last the entire winter, he said.
''I will personally go to Venezuela again and request that additional discounted oil be provided to the people in my district," Delahunt said.
Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska and the Senate's most ardent backer of ANWR drilling, blamed the heating program cuts on lawmakers who voted to take the ANWR provision out of the budget. The defense bill tied heating assistance money to revenues from ANWR.
Nearly all Democrats and two Republican senators voted to filibuster the defense spending bill because the controversial ANWR provision had been included. When it was clear to the GOP leadership that ANWR was dragging down the defense bill, leaders removed the oil drilling provision -- and money for the heating assistance program went with it.
''If you take out ANWR, you take out that money," Stevens told his colleagues during a Senate floor debate. ''That is money that was there. It was not funny money. It was money for this year. So when you go back to New York, will you tell them why?"
Senate Budget Committee chairman Judd Gregg said the only way Congress could have found extra money for the heating assistance program was through a new revenue source, such as selling leases to the drilling rights in the Arctic refuge.
''Without that money, we will go back to the LIHEAP funding levels which are traditional here, and we will not be able to pick up the extra costs of LIHEAP," said Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire.
''[This is] a very serious problem for a lot of low-income people who are trying to figure out how they are going to be able to heat their homes this winter."
But Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who supported the filibuster, said all senators knew the real bone of contention in the bill was ANWR drilling, not the heating assistance program.
''To try to weave into the debate this notion that we were voting against LIHEAP is preposterous," Reed said. 
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