State Waiting for Federal Home Heating Dollars

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On Wednesday, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg urged his colleagues to pass a defense spending bill.

Included in that bill was 2 billion dollars in funding for the low income home energy assistance program or LIHEAP.

Gregg said that money needs to get to New Hampshire, and other cold weather states, as quickly as possible.

“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 cost of LIHEAP which is a function of the increased oil cost, this is a very seriously problem for people trying to figure out how to heat their homes this year.”

But also included in that defense bill was the controversial provision to open up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Revenue from ANWR was slated to pay for the home energy assistance program, but not until 2008.

But when the Senate stripped ANWR from the bill, they also pulled out the LIHEAP money for 2008 ….and 2006.

Senators are now looking for ways to restore the 2 billion dollars.

In the meantime, the total amount of LIHEAP money for all 50 states is now less than it was last year.

Robert Greenstein from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says that’s a problem.

“LIHEAP funding not only is not being increased to meet the sharp spikes in fuel cost but it will be lower, 1 percent lower, than last winter when fuel bills were well below what they are now.”

Presently, New Hampshire residents are paying 17 percent more for oil and 28 percent more for natural gas than they did at this time last year.

According to state officials, that has lead to a 25 percent increase in applications for heating assistance aid from a year ago.

Louise Bergeron says she is already seeing more need for assistance.

Bergeron is the energy director with Southern New Hampshire Services, one organization responsible for fielding LIHEAP applications.

“We are certainly ahead of where we were last year, we have 800 more applications certified more than we did last year at this time so we did see that increase in Hillsborough county as well and we anticipate the pace will continue throughout the heating season.”

At this point New Hampshire would receive at least 15 million dollars of the total 2 billion dollar LIHEAP pot.

Last year, the total amount allocated to the state was around 18 million dollars.

And even if the state received the same amount, Mary Anne Manoogian from the state office of energy and planning says those dollars won't go as far as last year because of higher fuel costs.

What's more, Manoogian says, no matter what the level, she just wants to know when help is coming.

“We still don’t have for New Hampshire residents a resolution on what LIHEAP funding will be for fiscal year ‘06 and we’re almost done with a month in December and we’re heading into January and it would be helpful to have the appropriations finalized at the federal level.”

The state provided 10 million dollars in heating aid in the event that federal money was stalled or wasn’t sufficient

Manoogian says she’s grateful for that cushion, but says securing federal dollars is critical.

“Our focus continues to remain at the federal level particularly in light of the fact that a lot of demand and request for assistance is in response to high energy costs that was nothing that the state had any control over.”

New Hampshire Congressman Jeb Bradley says he has requested that Congress to be called back into session from the holiday recess to deal with LIHEAP.

Whether that will happen, Bradley is unsure.

“I hope because of the extreme nature of the situation and the need for this kind of funding for the northeast, that there will be a positive reaction, but I think it’s too early to predict that.”

One thing that may help in the meantime, is that the weather is predicted to be out of he single digits and up in the 30s over the next few days.

For NHPR news, I’m RK.