Kennedy, Kerry Try to Raise Heat Assistance Funding
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18-Massachusetts Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy plan another attempt to increase federal funds for low-income heating and weatherization assistance.
More than 10,000 Worcester households benefit from federal energy funds, and with energy prices remaining high, the senators hope to attach increased funding to spending bills that figure to move through Congress in the next few weeks.
The energy bill that President Bush signed in August authorized up to $5.1 billion for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps pay the heating costs of households that fall below 200 percent of the national poverty line. But Congress currently plans to spend only around $2 billion for the program this year.
An effort to increase spending failed earlier this month because of GOP parliamentary maneuvering.
President Bush is “more worried about the politics of high energy prices” than high energy prices, Senator Kerry told reporters Tuesday, adding that the White House could easily persuade the Republican Congress to spend the full $5.1 billion. Instead, he said, it is a Republican “party position to stop this from happening.”
David Fox, executive director of the Washington-based Campaign for Home Energy Assistance, endorsed the effort to increase spending. “We’ve got to have a higher [spending] number just to cover increases for this winter,” he said.
Mr. Fox pointed to a recent Energy Information Administration study that projected a 32 percent increase in the cost of heating oil this winter. He said that with current spending levels, only about 15 percent of the 32 million households nationwide that are eligible for assistance could receive it.
Roughly 10,500 Worcester households benefit from the program, according to Patsy Lewis, the executive director of Worcester Community Action Council.
New England is the most expensive region in the country in which to heat a house in winter, with the average cost to consumers for heating oil projected to be as high as $1,925 this winter. Ms. Lewis said the poorest Worcester recipients of federal heating assistance last year received only $730, which, she said with a laugh, “doesn’t even get a tank of gas in the Northeast.”
She said that without additional assistance her agency’s clients-one third of whom are elderly people living on a fixed income-may compensate for the cost of heating by not filling a prescription or going to the doctor when they need to.
Senator Kerry said he expects the next attempt to pass the extra funds to come this week.
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