Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Children and Families, today held a hearing to examine how the rising cost of home heating is impacting the health and welfare of American families.  Dodd also discussed how the critically important Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) could be expanded to provide help to more families.   

“LIHEAP is not just a heating and cooling program – it is a homeownership program, a nutrition program, and a health program,” said Dodd. “A family that struggles to pay its energy bill may be forced to turn off the heat, cut back on purchasing nutritious food, or go without necessary medications. A child who can’t sleep from hunger or cold can’t pay attention in class the next morning and will be more prone to illness, putting further pressure on our schools and our health care system. An elderly homeowner who can’t pay their energy bill might be forced to leave their home.”

In making the case for LIHEAP to be reauthorized and expanded, Dodd said: “Families are counting on LIHEAP; they are counting on us to fight to fund it fully. Six out of seven families eligible for LIHEAP are getting nothing—six out of seven families are being forced into impossible choices between heating their homes and food and medicine— this is six families too many.”

At the hearing, Dodd heard from witness Robin Hussain, a single grandmother from Hartford, CT who is raising three grandchildren and receives help from LIHEAP.  In her testimony, Hussain discussed how important LIHEAP’s assistance has been for her family as she has struggled to make ends meet in recent years.

“As I see it, your heating cost is the toughest thing to manage in your entire household budget,” said Hussain.  “You can shop carefully for groceries and clip coupons or switch to another market. You can get used clothes. You can find a more affordable apartment.  But you don’t have a choice when it comes to heating that apartment. You can’t choose a different natural gas vendor. There are no coupons to clip. If you rent, you have no control over the efficiency of the furnace. But heat is not optional; it’s not a luxury. You might turn down the thermostat, but you’re still going to need to heat your apartment.”

Senator Dodd’s full remarks, as prepared, are below:

I’d like to thank you all for coming to this important hearing on the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. For 27 winters, since 1981, LIHEAP has helped millions of people pay their heating bills and keep their families warm.

I’d like to welcome and thank all of the witnesses who will provide testimony for us here today. Many of them will explain the critical importance of LIHEAP to their families—and how many more Americans could be assisted if Congress were to expand LIHEAP’s reach and increase the program’s  funding.  For almost thirty years, LIHEAP has kept thousands of Americans from having to make the impossible choice between heating their homes or feeding their families. It has made the difference between having money to pay the mortgage rather than facing foreclosure in the Spring. And it has allowed senior citizens to afford to heat or cool their homes without sacrificing other necessities like prescription drugs.

Clearly, LIHEAP is about much more than heat. As we’ll hear from our witnesses, it is intertwined with many other aspects of a family’s life. LIHEAP is not just a heating and cooling program—it is a homeownership program, a nutrition program, and a health program. A family that struggles to pay its energy bill may be forced to turn off the heat, cut back on purchasing nutritious food, or go without necessary medications. A child who can’t sleep from hunger or cold can’t pay attention in class the next morning and will be more prone to illness, putting further pressure on our schools and our health care system.

This year, more and more families are faced with these dilemmas. The slowing economy has brought higher unemployment. In my own state of Connecticut, unemployment rose 24% over the past year. And as families all over are losing income, rising fuel prices are stretching their energy budgets like never before. Just this past week we saw the price of crude oil reach well over $100 per barrel, an increase of 73% from last year. Heating fuel prices have risen equally dramatically. The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that this year, it will cost $1,962 to heat a home with oil, a 33% increase from last year and 117% increase since 2004. The cost of heating a home with natural gas has gone up 30% since 2004. The cost of heating with propane, which heats homes in many rural areas across the nation, has increased 23% in the last year and 73% since 2004. As a result of these drastically rising costs, heating assistance that made a real difference for families just a few years ago is no longer doing the job; our LIHEAP dollars are being stretched beyond their capacity.

My home state of Connecticut offers an excellent example. In 2008, nearly twice as many households as last year ran out of their basic LIHEAP benefits by January 14th. January 14th—in a state where nights can stay freezing well into March and even April. When basic benefits run out, crisis assistance kicks in—but many families exhaust that as well, leaving them with virtually nothing. In 2007, that was true of 211 Connecticut families. In 2008 how many families did this happen to? Two thousand, nine hundred and eighty one.

But as both the price of oil and the number of families in need has risen, the funding we need to help them has remained basically flat—for a quarter-century. That means we have been forced to pick and choose. Who will stay warm through the winter? Who will spend it shivering? Six out of seven eligible families get nothing.

Thankfully, emergency LIHEAP funding was released in January and again two weeks ago; but still, it was not nearly enough to cover the projected shortfalls. Families are counting on LIHEAP; they are counting on us to fight to fund it fully. Six out of seven families are making do without heat—six out of seven families are being forced into impossible choices between warmth and food and medicine—this is six families too many.

Before I close, I’d like to briefly introduce our witnesses. Thank you to you all:

Meg Power is a Senior Advisor to the National Community Action Foundation and President of Economic Opportunity Studies.

Dr. Deborah Frank is a Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University Medical School and is the founder and a Principal Investigator of the Children’s Sentinel Nutritional Assessment Program (C-SNAP).

Robin Hussain, from Hartford, CT, will share her personal story about LIHEAP.

And Regina Surber is the Director of Community Services at the Tennessee Department of Human Services, responsible for the administration of the LIHEAP program in her state.

I look forward to all of your testimony this morning.

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