WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States Senate has passed a motion offered by Senators Susan Collins and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) to encourage Senate conferees on the budget reconciliation conference report to include $2.9 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP). This funding would be in addition to the $2.1 billion already included in the FY 2006 Labor-HHS Appropriations Act, bringing the total appropriated amount to $5.1 billion.
Senator Collins, co-chair of the Northeast-Midwest coalition, has long been committed to seeing LIHEAP assistance funded at an adequate level.
Speaking on the Senate floor this week in support of the motion, Senator Collins said; “this funding is absolutely critical to help our nation’s citizens keep warm this winter. Just yesterday, I was in Northern Maine, in Aroostook County , and the high temperature for the day was just 12-degrees… in weather like that people simply have no choice but to devote a very large part of their budget to keeping warm. Unfortunately, with the escalating costs of home heating oil, many people simply cannot afford to do so.”
Each year, 4.5 million low-income families rely on LIHEAP to assist with the costs of heating their homes. LIHEAP is a federal block grant program that provides states with annual funding to operate home energy assistance programs for low-income households. In addition to helping to pay energy bills for low-income families and the elderly, LIHEAP helps to fund energy crisis intervention programs, low-cost residential weatherization and other energy-related home repairs.