More fuel-assistance aid helps, but is still inadequate

Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, NH)
February 1, 2003

New England’s congressional delegation is strutting all over Washington, D.C., these days, touting the release of about $200 million in Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) money to help those who can least afford it pay their home-heating costs.

What they don’t tell you is that $300 million was available and that it took enormous pressure from senators and congressmen from all over this country to get President Bush to part with the money.

What they also don’t tell you is that Bush’s budget for the coming year would supply $300 million less in LIHEAP aid to families even as his Middle East policy is causing skyrocketing heating oil and gasoline costs. And what New Hampshire Sens. John Sununu and Judd Gregg as well as 1st District Congressman Jeb Bradley won’t tell you is that they support the president’s budget.

The additional $2.9 million New Hampshire will get as a result of the release of this money will certainly help. However, with the weather as cold as it’s been and heating-fuel costs rising steadily, there will remain a desperate need among the increasing number of those in tough financial straits that cannot be filled.

It means some of those recently unemployed as a result of the sluggish economy will still have to make the horrible choice of whether to buy food or heating fuel.

Nancy Cushman, who administers the fuel assistance program for Rockingham Community Action, said that even with this new money, the program may not be able to continue past April of this year, although things would have been far worse without the release of the contingency funds.

The estimated amount the county will receive in additional LIHEAP funds "would not help us meet our goal of trying to keep our doors open to the end of the program in April," said Cushman. "We would have run out of money, and we still may."

The fuel assistance program helps an estimated 2,600 families in the county, but that number depends on how cold the weather gets, the price of heating fuels and, of course, the amount of federal money available.

It seems like every year we here in the Northeast are faced with a critical shortage of federal heating assistance funds. It would obviously make sense, then, to budget for what is actually needed and increase the LIHEAP allocation to the appropriate levels.

And there is no justification for any member of the Northeast’s congressional delegation to strut around Washington until that is done.

We listened closely to the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday, but somehow fuel assistance and other programs designed to address the challenges facing low-income Americans appeared lost in the billions of dollars earmarked for dividends tax cuts and for hydrogen-powered vehicles that won’t be available until, in the president’s words, those born today are ready to drive.

- Portsmouth Herald