<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:26546.wais]
S. Hrg. 109-340
KEEPING THE ELDERLY WARM: HELP FOR SENIORS AND HIGH HOME HEATING COSTS
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WEST MIFFLIN, PA
__________
JANUARY 6, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-16
Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging
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_____________________________________________________________________________
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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
GORDON SMITH, Oregon, Chairman
RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama HERB KOHL, Wisconsin
SUSAN COLLINS, Maine JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina RON WYDEN, Oregon
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho EVAN BAYH, Indiana
RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
CONRAD BURNS, Montana BILL NELSON, Florida
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
JIM DEMINT, South Carolina
Catherine Finley, Staff Director
Julie Cohen, Ranking Member Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Opening Statement of Senator Rick Santorum....................... 1
Panel I
Wade F. Horn, Ph.D., assistant secretary for Children and
Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Washington, DC................................................. 2
Margot Anderson, director of the Office of Energy Markets and End
Use, Energy Information Administration, Washington, DC......... 12
Panel II
William F. Hecht, chairman and CEO, PPL Corporation, Allentown,
PA............................................................. 34
Jimmy Staton, senior vice president-Operations Dominion Delivery. 49
Fred Griesbach, state director, American Association of Retired
Persons........................................................ 64
Major Deborah R. Sedlar, program secretary, Salvation Army
Divisional Headquarters, Pittsburgh, PA........................ 75
Estelle Richman, secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA................................... 83
APPENDIX
Prepared Statement of Senator Rick Santorum...................... 97
(iii)
KEEPING THE ELDERLY WARM: HELP FOR SENIORS AND HIGH HOME HEATING COSTS
---------- --
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Special Committee on Aging,
West Mifflin, PA.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., at the
West Mifflin Municipal Center, 3000 Lebanon Church Road, West
Mifflin, PA, Hon. Rick Santorum, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICK SANTORUM
Senator Santorum. Good morning, and let me welcome all of
those in attendance here this morning, and in particular let me
thank our witnesses from Washington and across the Commonwealth
for coming here this morning to talk about an important issue,
an issue that actually has attracted a lot of attention over
the last several months as we have been experiencing, as you
know, a dramatic spike in energy prices and its impact. As we
look out on a cold, wintry day here in Pittsburgh, we could not
have picked a better setting for this hearing.
The effects of these high prices has really caused a lot of
debate and discussion in Washington about what we can do to
help those particularly on fixed income and lower incomes to
meet their energy needs, to keep themselves and their families
warm through these cold winter months here in the northern
climes of the United States. The Aging Committee has been
looking at this. This is an issue that disproportionately
affect seniors and one that--depending on who you believe, we
have the second or third largest per capita population of
seniors here in Pennsylvania--this is an issue that
dramatically affects Pennsylvania. The Aging Committee held a
hearing about this last summer when there was concern at that
time with natural gas prices in particular spiking, that there
would be a crisis this winter with respect to keeping people
warm through these winter months, and then with the events of
Hurricane Katrina things were exacerbated even more. We are now
faced with a problem of greater proportion than we anticipated.
The Congress has acted to some degree. We did provide some
additional funding for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program
in the appropriations process. We attempted to provide more
relief in what is called the reconciliation bill, which was a
package that was put together to actually reduce spending
overall, but included in that spending reduction bill that came
out of conference was a provision to provide more money for
low-income energy assistance, $2 billion immediately and long-
term that was going to provide a stable source of funding for
low-income energy assistance, tying lease revenue from the sale
of leases in the North Slope of Alaska for oil exploration. A
percentage of that would have gone in a mandatory way--in other
words, it would have been tied to providing increased money for
low-income energy assistance. Unfortunately, the provision was
defeated in a procedural move on the floor of the U.S. Senate,
and as a result all of the benefits that attach to ANWR were
stripped out, including the low-income energy assistance money
and the long-term dedication of funding for that program.
There may be an opportunity, and I certainly hope that
there will be one next year, to resurrect that and hopefully
get a stable source. Right now there is no source of funding
for the low-income program. It is simply appropriated money out
of the general fund. To have a source of revenue for money on
top of what we already put forward I think would be a very
beneficial thing and something that certainly I will work
toward.
You did not come here to listen to me, although hopefully
somewhat to listen to a few things I had to say, but I came
here to listen to our panelists who are here, and I want to
thank all of our panelists, but in particular let me thank our
representatives from the Federal Government here. Dr. Wade
Horn, who is someone who I work with probably--I won't say
maybe as much as anybody in the Administration, but certainly
work with a lot in the Administration, in his role in helping
those who are less fortunate among us, and we have worked
together on a variety of things with respect to intercity
programs that Wade has been involved in, trying to strengthen
the family, the President's faith-based initiatives, a whole
laundry list of things that Wade has been active on and
involved. He is, in my opinion, one of the bright lights of the
Administration. I want to thank you, Wade, for being here this
morning. Your official title--and I am not real good with
Administration titles--but it is assistant secretary for
Administration and for Children and Families over at HHS. So
Wade, thank you for being here.
Margot Anderson, her title is the director of the Office of
Energy Markets and End-Use at the Energy Information
Administration, and I want to thank you for coming and sharing
your thoughts with us, and we can proceed.
Dr. Horn, thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF WADE F. HORN, PH.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much, Senator Santorum, for
inviting me. I particularly appreciate the kind words that you
just said. If my parents were here----
Senator Santorum. They are not? I thought they were here.
Mr. Horn [continuing]. My father would appreciate those
words and my mother would have believed them. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today to talk about the Low
Income Home Energy Assistance Program and how it provides
assistance to millions of Americans in helping them meet the
cost of home energy and heating. The Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, grew out of a series of
emergency programs generated by the energy crisis of the late
1970's. Today LIHEAP continues to help ensure that low-income
families and individuals have adequate home energy through a
Federal-State partnership to provide States with the
flexibility they need to design the best program approaches to
meet consumer needs.
For the past several years, almost 5 million households per
year received LIHEAP assistance to help get them through the
winter months. The program also provides cooling assistance to
about 400,000 households and weatherization assistance to about
90,000 more. The receipt of a LIHEAP benefit not only means a
warm home, or sometimes a cool one, but also often means the
difference between a family staying in their home or having to
move, with all the disruption that that entails. Likewise a
LIHEAP benefit can help make it possible for the elderly to
stay in their homes. The recently enacted Labor-HHS
appropriations bill provides almost $2 billion for the LIHEAP
block grant program, and an additional $181 million for
emergency contingency funds for fiscal year 2006. To date
Pennsylvania has requested and received $95.1 million of their
block grant funds for this year.
I am also very pleased to announce that yesterday we
released $100 million of the emergency funds made available in
the Labor-HHS appropriations Act. Pennsylvania's share of that
release was nearly $7.7 million. A total of $101.5 million in
emergency funds remain available for this fiscal year.
LIHEAP block grant funds are allocated to States based on a
formula using the State's low-income population, home energy
expenditures by low-income households, and weather conditions
substantially weighted toward cold weather. The LIHEAP grantees
may set their eligibility level to address families with
incomes as low as 110 percent of their poverty level, as high
as the greater of 150 percent of the poverty level, or 60
percent of State median income. Pennsylvania has set its
eligibility rate for its heating assistance program at 135
percent of poverty in fiscal year 2005. Legislative changes in
1994 made it possible for grantees to look less at absolute
income levels and more at need. In setting eligibility levels,
States may, for example, give priority to households that have
greater energy need because of age, for example, or health, and
we, in fact, encourage States to target their programs to the
more vulnerable low-income individuals in their communities,
particularly households with elderly persons or with young
children.
In March 2004, the Census Bureau current population survey
data showed that 35 percent of households receiving LIHEAP
heating assistance had at least one person 60 years of age or
older; 47 percent had at least one person with a disability,
and 22 percent included at least one child 5 years of age or
younger. However, the data shows that the Mid-Atlantic, East
North Central and West North Central areas of the country
reported that the elderly are being served by the LIHEAP
program at a lower rate than the national level. To address
this issue, over the last 2 years the Administration has
conducted an outreach program with LIHEAP brochures in both
English and Spanish to help inform communities about energy
assistance available to low-income older Americans. So far we
have distributed more than 67,000 brochures to organizations
across the country, with 53 percent of the brochures targeted
to community-based organizations serving the elderly.
In Pennsylvania, the Department of Public Welfare works
with area agencies for seniors across the State to get the word
out about LIHEAP with outreach and application materials. In
fiscal year 2004, which is the most recent year for which we
have data available, DPW here in Pennsylvania authorized
regular LIHEAP heating assistance for approximately 105,000
households with an elderly member over the age of 60,
representing 31 percent of all heating payments made by the
State. Pennsylvania also provided crisis benefits for such
incidents as impending shutoffs to more than 23,000 elderly
households, representing 23 percent of all crisis payments.
We are continually impressed by the resourcefulness of
State and local agencies in using LIHEAP funds to provide
meaningful help to families facing a home energy crisis. These
workers in the front lines generally resolve or avert crises by
telephoning the energy vendor who maintains or restores
services based on an assurance that LIHEAP benefits will be
paid, and this, of course, is important during these cold
winter months to help ensure that the elderly, in particular,
stay safe and healthy.
In conclusion, I want to assure the Committee that this
Administration is committed to the LIHEAP program. We at the
Department of Health and Human Services are working actively
with our State partners to ensure that LIHEAP funds are
targeted to America's most needy families, including our
elderly citizens, so they can maintain a healthy temperature in
their homes.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you,
and I particularly thank you for your steadfast leadership and
support for the LIHEAP program.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Horn follows:]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you very much, Wade.
Margot.
STATEMENT OF MARGOT ANDERSON, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF ENERGY
MARKETS AND END USE, ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Anderson. Thank you, and I, too, appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the outlook
for energy prices and heating expenditures and to examine their
impact on the elderly population. The Energy Information
Administration is an independent statistical and analytic
agency within the Department of Energy. We are charged with
providing objective, timely and relevant data analysis and
projections for the Congress, the Administration and the
public. We do not take positions on policy issues, but we do
produce data and analysis forecasts that are intended to assist
policymakers in their deliberations. As it is for all
Americans, direct energy expenditures for the elderly, defined
in this testimony as those age 65 and over, is a combination of
energy cost for running the household, such as heating and
cooling, and energy cost for transportation fuel. There are
also indirect expenditures embodied within the energy component
of the costs for goods and services, but this testimony focuses
only on the direct costs. The two major determinants for energy
expenditures for households are energy prices and consumption
levels. Energy prices are determined predominantly by world
events, at least in the case of oil prices, and by domestic
trends in the case of natural gas and electricity prices. In
the short run, household energy consumption levels are
determined largely as a function of weather. In the longer run,
household consumption patterns are influenced by technology
structure and behavioral trends as homes are constructed or
remodeled and energy-consuming equipment is purchased.
Consumption levels for transportation are a function of
vehicle choice, driving behavior and other behavioral issues.
In 2005, U.S. spot prices of crude oil and natural gas
increased an average of 36 and 47 percent, respectively, and
total U.S. energy demand remained flat despite a healthy
economic growth rate of more than 3 percent. Prices for crude
oil, petroleum products and natural gas are projected to remain
high through 2006 due to continuing tight international
supplies and the slow recovery from hurricane-induced supply
losses.
I will note that all of the numbers that I am talking about
today are based on our December 2005 forecast. Next week, on
the 10th of January, we will release another monthly forecast
that will have slightly revised numbers. We are not expecting
full hurricane recovery until late winter or early spring of
2006, so this will continue to impact the markets. For example,
the price of West Texas Intermediate crude Oil, which is our
benchmark crude oil price, is projected to average $57 per
barrel in 2005 and $63 per barrel in 2006. Regular gasoline
prices are projected to average $2.27 when we look at all of
2005, and $2.41 in 2006. Natural gas prices are expected to
average almost $9.00 per thousand cubic feet in 2005 when we
compile all the numbers for the year, and about $9.30 in 2006.
Retail natural gas prices are always higher than the spot
prices.
Winter residential space heating expenditures in the winter
of 2005 and 2006 are projected to be higher relative to the
winter of 2004 and 2005, mostly because of these higher energy
prices. On average, households heating primarily with natural
gas, which is what you would find used in this region, will
likely spend $281 or 38 percent more this winter than last
winter. Houses heating primarily with heating oil, which is
used predominantly in the Northeast, can expect to pay on
average $255 or 21 percent more relative to last winter.
Households heating primarily with propane--that is typically
used in the Midwest--can expect to pay on average $167 more.
These projections are based on weather forecasts by the
National Weather Service. Should colder weather prevail,
expenditures could be significantly higher. These averages
provide a broad guide to changes from last winter, but fuel
expenditures are highly dependent on local weather conditions,
the size and efficiency of individual homes and their heating
equipment and thermostat settings. The effects of energy
expenditures on the elderly can be difficult to isolate because
the elderly live in a variety of housing arrangements. Many
live alone. Others live with elderly or nonelderly partners.
Some live in extended households and have primary
responsibility for energy costs, while others live in the care
of younger household members and may have only partial or no
responsibility for energy costs. We base these numbers on a
household residential survey that we conduct every 4 years.
These numbers are based on a 2001 residential consumption
survey, and we will be updating that next year when the new
numbers come in from the 2005 survey.
Our data show that households consisting solely of elderly
members use about as much energy as other households, after
accounting for the number of household members. The elderly use
less energy per household, but that is because they tend to
live alone and live in smaller homes. The data show that floor
of about $1,000 for energy expenditures as of 2001. Converting
that to 2005 prices, that floor is about $1,200 even for the
least energy consuming household.
Regardless of living arrangements, the elderly still have
transportation requirements. In contrast to household
expenditures, the relative gap between transportation use by
the elderly and by other types of households is quite large,
even after considering differences in household composition.
The elderly drive quite a bit less than members of younger
households, although when there are two or more elderly persons
in a totally elderly household, they tend to have two cars and
drive almost as many miles as a one-person elderly household.
Hence, that would translate into higher gasoline purchases.
The amount of energy expenditures is meaningful in itself,
but it is also useful to examine those expenditures relative to
household income. Once again, there appears to be a floor of
about $1,000 per household as of 2001 for household energy
expenditures regardless of income. Applying the generally
higher 2005 prices to 2001 consumption levels results in higher
expenditures. The burden falls most heavily on the lowest
income households, which are relatively more prevalent for the
elderly than for the rest of the population. For a household
with $15,000 or less in household income, an annual energy bill
exceeding $1,100 has a much greater impact than a $2,000 annual
energy bill for a household with greater than $50,000 annual
income. To the extent energy consumption for both household and
transportation use is different now than it was in 2001, the
annual energy bill will be different, but adding household and
transportation energy costs together, many low-income
households, including low-income elderly, are now spending 10
to 20 percent of their income on energy, which is relatively
higher than those that are in the higher income categories.
This concludes my testimony, Mr. Chairman, and I would be
glad to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Anderson follows.]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you very much, Margot. I appreciate
that information.
Doctor, a couple of questions. You mentioned in your
testimony that you noticed that the percentage of seniors here
in this region using LIHEAP was lower and that you were
starting an ad campaign. First off, did you do an analysis as
to why seniors are not using the program here in Pennsylvania
or in the Northeast as much as other areas of the country?
Mr. Horn. As you know, under the LIHEAP program States have
enormous flexibility to target their funds. The Federal
Government encourages States to target those funds to the most
vulnerable populations, but it is still a decision that is left
up to the States. We do not have the ability to mandate that
the States target certain populations, but we do have the
ability to advocate the issue. Pennsylvania is not
substantially below the national average, but as a region the
North-Central, East Coast area tends to be lower than the
national average, and that is why, as I have mentioned, we have
been publishing brochures in both English and Spanish and
distributing them through the Eldercare Locator Network that is
administered through the U.S. Administration on Aging, and
working in partnership with a variety of different community
organizations to get this information into the hands of the
elderly. However, this remains a decision that is made at the
State level and at the local level through community action
agencies. It is not something we can mandate that they actually
provide services to a particular population.
Senator Santorum. So you are suggesting that the reason it
is lower is more likely a result of State policy and local
policy than it is the result of any lack of awareness on the
part of seniors?
Mr. Horn. It is certainly not a result of inadequate
Federal policy in the sense that Federal policy allows States
flexibility to target these funds in the ways that makes sense
to State governments. Again Pennsylvania is not substantially
below the national average and we have been working with the
State to distribute brochures, and do more effective outreach
to the elderly. My guess is that part of the problem is related
to the elderly who may live in remote rural areas in
Pennsylvania and may not have access to the kind of information
that would allow them to enroll into the program, but I think
with more effective State outreach we could reach those elderly
households.
Senator Santorum. Do you have any sense of the impact of
the campaign that you have engaged in, as to whether it is
having an impact at all?
Mr. Horn. It is too early to tell because it is a
relatively new campaign for us, but we hope to be able to
report back in the next year or so as to the impact.
Senator Santorum. The Energy Policy Act, as you know,
requires you to report to Congress on how LIHEAP could be used
more effectively to prevent loss of life, and I know you are
fulfilling that requirement right now. Do you have any thoughts
on what you have learned up to this point?
Mr. Horn. As you know, under the act we are required to
consult and we are, in fact, consulting with all 50 States and
the District of Columbia around this issue. We have been
working in consultation with the National Energy Assistance
Directors Association. We also have been in contact with the
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to bring their expertise in
the health arena to bear on this question. We also have been
identifying best practices through our LIHEAP Clearinghouse.
Although we do not have any hard information yet to share with
you, we are on track as required by the law to provide a report
to Congress by August 2006, so you can invite me back in August
2006 to talk to you about it.
Senator Santorum. No one will be thinking about cold
weather in August 2006 around here, let me assure you. Let me
ask a question on the release of the emergency funds. You have
suggested you released--and I think you said Pennsylvania got--
I think it was $7 million from that release. Is that money
released the same--per the formula that is for traditional
LIHEAP or is there a separate allocation?
Mr. Horn. Under the law, the contingency fund can be
released by the President at his discretion, and there are
various ways that one can release contingency funds. Generally
we take into account factors such as high energy costs,
temperatures and so forth.
Senator Santorum. On a State-by-State basis?
Mr. Horn. Yes, and you do not have to distribute the
contingency fund monies per a formula. You can use those monies
to target crisis needs, and that is the purpose of the
contingency fund. In fact, for example, after Hurricane Katrina
hit the Gulf Coast we released about $27 million to those
States for energy-related needs because of the impact of the
hurricane. Yesterday we released $100 million in contingency
funds particularly targeted to cold weather States because of
the high energy prices and the cold weather.
Senator Santorum. Very good.
Margot, a couple of questions. Obviously, the concern about
the cost of natural gas here in Pennsylvania, as you mentioned,
that is a primary source of heat for most of our residents
here, although obviously electricity and home heating oil is
another factor, but primarily we are a natural gas State and we
have seen a dramatic rise in the cost of natural gas, yet there
is testimony all over the lot about what is causing that, and
some have suggested that demand has been fairly flat, yet
prices continue to go up. Any thoughts on what is the dynamic
there if demand is really not going up very much? I think you
said demand was flat. Why are we seeing dramatic increases in
price?
Ms. Anderson. Well, demand has only been relatively flat
for total energy for the last year or 18 months. I think if you
look back over the course of the 1990's and 2001, 2002 and
2003, there were rather dramatic increases in natural gas
demand as a lot of power plants converted to coal and to
natural gas, and as new natural gas plants were constructed,
and a lot of this has put pressure on supplies. Supplies have
not kept up, quite frankly, with demand.
One of the issues you have with natural gas is, of course,
the market is mostly just a North American market and primarily
just a U.S. market, unlike petroleum, which is a global market.
So prices are determined by our ability to either produce for
ourselves or purchase from Canada, from Mexico, LNG from
Trinidad, et cetera, and so in a more constrained market where
supply has not kept pace with demand you will see these long-
term pressures on prices. If you look at supply growth you will
see that that has not kept pace with the large increases, in
demand particularly due to the conversion from coal to natural
gas over the last 10 years.
Senator Santorum. So you do not think there is anything
going on beyond just a pure supply and demand issue here? I
mean, some have suggested that the markets are manipulating the
prices and what is going on in the futures market could be a
little bit more transparent than it is. You do not have any
thoughts on that?
Ms. Anderson. No, I do not.
Senator Santorum. OK. You did mention that prices are going
up. The question I had is are you seeing any impact on those
prices being elevated on demand? You say demand has flattened
out. Is that because of the increase in price or have you seen
any conservation efforts? I mean, what is going on that is
affecting demand right now, particularly in the natural gas
area?
Ms. Anderson. I think a lot of the fourth-quarter effects
were coming from what we would call demand destruction due to
the hurricanes, where there were simply just not a lot of
consumers in the Gulf area using natural gas. There likely has
been some price effect. It is very difficult to quantify in the
short term. Sometimes those price effects will not show up till
a quarter or two after the impact because it is just difficult
to get the data and do the analysis, but we certainly suspect
there is conservation going on. There is that impact due to
price. There is probably some fuel switching, a little bit here
and there, which is probably having an effect. We are surprised
that we have not seen as much demand effect due to high prices
either in the crude sector or the natural gas sector. I think
everyone, every economist, would have expected demand to have
shown more dramatic decreases than we have actually seen in the
data. Part of that is attributed to a rather robust economy, so
that while we have had these high energy prices, the underlying
economy has been pretty strong, which, as economists would say,
would translate into something called an income effect. If your
income is relatively stable or increasing, as it is for some
Americans, that would swamp a price effect.
Over the last 10 or 20 years Americans are devoting
relatively less of their income to energy expenditures as we
become much more efficient in our energy use. So all of these
factors are affecting why we are not seeing the kind of price
effects that you might expect as gasoline prices got as high as
they did in the last quarter of 2005.
Senator Santorum. Do you have that information as to what
Americans now are spending on energy as a percentage of their
overall income versus what it was 10, 20 years ago, and--well,
why don't you share that and then we can sort of make
conclusions from that?
Ms. Anderson. Total energy expenditures as a percent of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined from 8.1 percent in 1990
to 6.0 percent in 1999 (expenditures and GDP are measured in
2004 dollars). In 2000, total energy expenditures as a percent
of real GDP increased to 7.0 percent then fell in 2001 to 6.8
percent and to 6.2 percent in 2002. Since 2003, energy
expenditures as a percent of real GDP have been increasing,
rising to 8.5 percent in 2005. The recent increase is due in
large part to increasing energy prices.
Senator Santorum. What is happening in the residential
market? Have you seen, because of the spike in natural gas here
in Pennsylvania or in places that use a lot of natural gas, any
move to converting to other forms of energy as a result of
these high prices?
Ms. Anderson. Well, we have not really seen that from our
data at this point, but that is not likely to show up for
months because the surveys just cannot keep pace with
behaviors, but there are technology constraints to being able
to do that. Not everyone can just switch to one fuel source
versus another.
Senator Santorum. What about manufacturers? They probably
have a little bit more.
Ms. Anderson. A little bit more, but sometimes they are
locked into a single source. So we are trying to get better
information with our survey instruments to try and figure out
the flexibility that manufacturers, the industrial, commercial
sectors, might have in their capability to fuel switch, but
some of that capability just simply is not there and they are
stuck with the fuel source that they are relying on primarily.
Senator Santorum. Very good. Thank you both very much for
your testimony. I appreciate it.
If the second panel could come up, I would appreciate that.
I do not think Secretary Richman is here, right? I do not see
her, so we may have to proceed without her. I hate to do that,
but she would have been our first witness.
Secretary Estelle Richman, secretary of DPW, is scheduled
to be here. We have not heard whether--she is probably just
delayed, probably due to the weather, so we will move then to
Bill Hecht, who is the chairman and CEO of PPL.
Bill, I appreciate you making the trek across the State
from Allentown to be with us here today and look forward to
your testimony. Thank you, Bill.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. HECHT, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, PPL
CORPORATION, ALLENTOWN, PA
Mr. Hecht. Thank you. I am pleased to be here, Senator. PPL
is a Pennsylvania-based company with headquarters in Allentown.
Through our subsidiaries, we serve about five million customers
worldwide and generate and sell electricity at wholesale in
markets in Pennsylvania and in the western U.S. In the U.S.,
PPL serves about 1.3 million electricity customers and 75,000
natural gas customers in Pennsylvania, primarily in the eastern
and central parts of our State. Our utility operations have
earned honors for customer service. PPL Electric Utilities, for
example, has won more awards for customer satisfaction from JD
Power Associates than any other utility in the U.S. Today's
hearing addresses a topic of particular importance to PPL, the
effect of higher costs for home heating on the elderly. In the
areas of Pennsylvania that we serve, about 28 percent of the
residents are age 65 or older. This is more than double the
national average. The increases in home heating bills have been
primarily driven by oil and natural gas prices. Electricity
rates in Pennsylvania have been essentially stable for many
years because of the way the State has deregulated the
electricity industry. PPL's electricity rates, for example,
have increased less than 10 percent since 2002.
Despite greater stability of electric rates, PPL recognizes
that high oil and gas prices may leave some customers,
especially the elderly that are on fixed incomes, less able to
afford electric service. PPL's utility companies offer many
payment programs, payment options and notification services to
help customers pay their bills and maintain service. Some are
specifically designed for the elderly, others are available to
all customers with a limited ability to pay, but often benefit
the elderly. In 2006, PPL Electric Utilities will spend more
than $26 million on programs for low-income customers in
Pennsylvania. Over the last 2 years, PPL has increased funding
for the programs by about 25 percent to meet growing need for
customer assistance. One program, Operation Help, was one of
the first utility-sponsored funds in the Nation for heating
assistance when electric utilities created it in 1983. The
program is funded voluntarily by PPL and by tax-deductible
contributions from our customers and employees. Operation Help
offers cash grants to low-income customers to help them meet
their heating bills regardless of fuel type, including not only
those that use electricity for space heating, but also those
who use oil, gas, propane or other fuels that may not be
supplied by PPL.
Social service agencies administer the program on behalf of
PPL and decide who receives the grants, which averaged about
$225 for some 3,500 recipients last year. This winter, PPL is
contributing $700,000 to Operation Help, and that is an
increase of about 40 percent over last winter. PPL Gas
Utilities, one of Pennsylvania's smaller gas companies,
provides assistance for gas bill payments through the Operation
Share program, which is similarly funded by voluntary
contributions. Because of natural gas prices, PPL is tripling
its Operation Share contribution this winter. In addition to
outright grants, elderly customers who meet income guidelines
may qualify for reduced bills through PPL's Customer Assistance
Programs, or CAP. PPL expects to provide more than $90 million
in CAP assistance in 2006 and has increased funding by more
than 20 percent in the last 2 years.
PPL Electric Utilities also provides home energy audits and
energy conservation measures to low-income customers through
what we call our Winter Relief Assistance Program, or WRAP.
Customers with electric home heating have saved an average of
10 percent on their electric bills after receiving these
services. In the last 2 years, some 700 elderly homeowners have
benefited from that program. While eligibility for payment
assistance and weatherization programs is based on income, we
have other services that are developed specifically for the
needs of the elderly. For example, PPL will not shut off
service for a customer having trouble paying their electric
bill during the winter if we are made aware that there is an
elderly resident in the home.
We also offer a program specifically for the elderly that
extends the due date of bills to coincide with the arrival of
pension or Social Security checks, and elderly customers may
designate a third party to receive late payment or shut off
notices as an extra measure of protection. Our budget billing
program, although not specifically created for the elderly,
offers equal monthly payments so that those on fixed incomes
can more effectively plan their budgets. We remain alert and
sensitive to the needs of the elderly and all customers so we
can adjust and expand the programs as needed. PPL works
productively with community-based social services agencies in
all 46 counties that we serve. We train our employees to
recognize problems and to refer the elderly to social service
organizations which can open doors to a wide range of services
and other sources of assistance through area agencies on aging.
Simply put, the elderly that may have difficulty meeting their
energy bill payments may also have other assistance needs, and
we can direct them.
In closing, Senator, I would like to acknowledge your
support and the support of Senator Specter for increased LIHEAP
funding. Last winter, some 24,000 PPL customers received $6.3
million in LIHEAP assistance. One-third of those customers were
elderly. Last, I want to thank you and the Special Committee on
Aging for convening this hearing in Pennsylvania to focus on
the needs of the elderly in our State and across the country.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hecht follows.]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you, Bill. I appreciate that.
Next we would like to hear from Jimmy Staton, who is the
senior vice president of Operations for Dominion Delivery.
Thank you very much, Jimmy, for being here.
STATEMENT OF JIMMY STATON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT-OPERATIONS,
DOMINION DELIVERY
Mr. Staton. Thank you. Good morning, Senator. As you
indicated, I'm the Senior Vice President of Operations for
Dominion Delivery, which is one of the major business units of
Dominion Resources, Inc. Our natural gas distribution company
in Pennsylvania is Dominion Peoples, which is based in
Pittsburgh and serves more than 350,000 homes and businesses in
16 counties. All of us at Dominion Peoples appreciate the
opportunity to offer comments this morning on the rising price
of natural gas for home heating and its impact on customers who
are elderly or have limited incomes. We are always eager to get
the word out about the programs available to assist those
customers, and we hope the hearing will result in more people
seeking that help.
The price of natural gas Dominion Peoples buys to serve its
customers has increased sharply this winter. This has occurred
despite our best efforts to hold down our procurement costs.
These measures include buying about 40 percent of our supply
locally from western Pennsylvania production, a step that hold
downs our transportation expenses. We are also fortunate to
have a significant natural gas storage capacity in
Pennsylvania. This also helps to mitigate our price swings.
Despite these measures, we estimate the average residential
bill will increase by more than 40 percent from January 2005 to
January 2006. Under Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission
regulations, Dominion Peoples earns no profit from this
purchased gas. The cost of the fuel is simply passed along to
customers on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Additionally, our fuel
costs are periodically audited by the PUC.
We are very sensitive to the impact these prices can have
on our customers with low or fixed incomes, especially the
elderly. We estimate that about 20 percent of our residential
customers are age 62 or older. We offer and support of a
variety of programs to help our low-income customers. These
programs include the CAP program, or Customer Assistance
Program, a special payment plan for low-income customers having
trouble paying their bills. We recently asked the PUC for
permission to expand the number of participants significantly
from the currently about 10,000 customers served by this
program.
We also have a weatherization initiative, the Low Income
Usage Reduction Program, or LIURP, which provides home energy
efficiency improvements and audits. We also offer the Customer
Assistance Referral and Evaluation Services, or CARES, program
that matches customers with special needs such as serious
medical conditions with appropriate assistance programs. The
Dollar Energy Fund, which is an independent nonprofit
organization that offers last resort assistance regardless of
fuel source to persons on low or fixed incomes. Our customers
make contributions to help fund the program and Dominion
Peoples provides matching contributions and covers
administrative costs. We also offer a Budget Billing program
that helps customers manage their energy bills by allowing them
to make level monthly payments. This program allows them to
spread their winter heating costs throughout the year. Budget
Billing is open to all customers who are not in arrears on
their bills. We also provide special services for persons with
needs due to age or health, including medical certification, to
delay service termination or to restore service for patients
with severe health issues. We also offer the Gatekeeper program
that enables our company personnel to recognize danger signals
in the elderly and make sure those individuals are getting the
help that they need. We also have third-party notification,
helping individuals who may have trouble handling their bills
by notifying a designated third-party such as a relative,
neighbor or a friend of an impending service termination. We
also offer the provision of easy-to-read thermostats and large-
print bills to customers with impaired vision and interaction
with hearing-impaired customers through telecommunications
devices for the deaf. Additionally, we help put our customers
in touch with government programs that can help pay energy
bills, such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
you have been such a great supporter of.
Important as these programs are, they are not long-term
solutions and many of them are approaching their limits of
effectiveness. Expansion of some of them could result in higher
customer rates, and it is unclear how much additional money is
going to be available from government sources. Pennsylvania has
certainly done its part, with Governor Rendell recently signing
a bill committing up to $20 million in additional funds for
fuel aid. But Congress so far has failed to expand LIHEAP
funding for fiscal 2006. We hope Congress will make additional
appropriations this month before many States start running out
of fuel assistance money. Conservation can help, too, and we
are seeing some new interest in energy efficiency due to the
recent price increases. Ultimately, however, the best way to
help all of our customers, including those who are elderly or
on limited incomes, is to produce more natural gas. Within
existing limits, producers are trying to do just that. Our
sister company, Dominion Exploration and Production, drilled
more than 100 new gas wells in Pennsylvania last year,
producing an additional six million cubic feet per day.
Dominion plans to increase its drilling activity in
Pennsylvania by 15 percent in 2006, but to ensure adequate
supplies we, as a Nation, must take additional steps to meet
that goal. We must take steps to increase offshore natural gas
production, especially from the Outer Continental Shelf.
Congress should pass legislation allowing the States to opt out
of the decades-old moratoria that have blocked exploration and
production in these waters. There is no economical or
environmental justification for maintaining such blanket
drilling bans.
We should also open more Federal lands for natural gas
exploration and production, including selected portions of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as well as other
Federal properties. On Federal lands already open to drilling,
the permitting process must be improved and accelerated. The
Domestic Petroleum Council estimates that clearing the current
permitting backlog could increase Rocky Mountain Area natural
gas reserves by several trillion cubic feet. We should continue
to support construction of a new pipeline from Alaska to
provide North Slope gas to the lower 48 States, and finally we
should continue to promote development of facilities to bring
additional supplies of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, into the
United States. If we are truly serious about helping customers
in need, our national policies must take a variety of steps to
bring more natural gas to market. Action is long overdue.
I thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee. I
will be happy to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Staton follows:]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you, Mr. Staton. I appreciate that.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce Fred Griesbach, who is
the state director of the AARP. Thank you for being here to
testify.
STATEMENT OF FRED GRIESBACH, STATE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN
ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS
Mr. Griesbach. Thank you for inviting us. This is a
critical issue, and I cannot tell you how much we appreciate
your focus on it. Yes, I really want to make four points here
today. One is stating the obvious: Energy prices are going up.
We heard earlier testimony--gas heat, $281 more this winter;
oil heat, $255 more nationally. The reality is it looks to us
in Pennsylvania like it may be worse here than nationally. PGW
bills are estimated by the PUC to be going up over $400 this
year and will be on average this year--average--projected to be
$2,046. That is $400 more than it was last year, and frankly
this is not just a blip. In 2002-2003, the average gas bill in
PGW was $870, so we are looking at a very dramatic increase in
Pennsylvania over a relatively short period of time, and in the
western part of the State we heard 40 percent increases. These
are increases that are $400 for some people. So whatever is
going on nationally, it looks, at least to people--frankly,
most of the folks who open up their bills, they do not know a
BTU from--all they see is that bottom line and say, ``Oh, my
God.''
This is a crisis for folks in Pennsylvania, and that is the
first point, that this is not just a blip. This has been going
on, and it just seems to be getting worse. The second point is
that the elderly are more vulnerable on this. Elderly people
generally spend a greater percentage of their income on energy
than younger people. That is a fact. However, low-income
elderly are paying an even greater share. The average low-
income elderly person is paying 14, 15 percent of their income
for energy, and at least a quarter of elderly people are
paying--and this is nationally--are paying 20 percent of their
income for energy. So this is a big deal to low-income people,
generally. It is a very big deal to low-income elderly people.
It is not just that it is a greater percent. They are
changing behavior to accommodate these energies, and some of
those changes in behavior are very, very dangerous changes. We
have surveyed--AARP nationally surveyed folks, elderly people,
low income; 60 percent of them had or already were trying these
things. They are turning the thermostat down in the winter.
They are turning the thermostat up in the summer. So they are
living in houses that are colder perhaps than they should be,
or warmer than they should be, depending on the season. But
additionally--and this gets kind of scary--about 12 percent of
them were limiting or doing without food in order to pay their
energy bills, 11 percent limiting or doing without medical
treatment to deal with their energy bills, 10 percent limiting
or doing without prescription drugs to deal with their energy
bills. We surveyed our members in Pennsylvania, and this is
before this new kind of wave of increase, and frankly one out
of seven, over a third, said they were having trouble paying
their bills, and one out of seven were either skipping meals or
skipping prescription drugs or not doing something else that
was important for their health in order to pay their energy
bills. So clearly it is not just that they are paying more;
they are making choices already that are not necessarily good
choices for their long-term health.
The third point is, in fact, LIHEAP, and it is very
interesting--I mean, about a third of the folks in Pennsylvania
who are on LIHEAP are elderly people, but the problem is--and
as you asked earlier, ``OK, well, should there be a greater
percentage of elderly people on LIHEAP?'' There should be more
elderly people on LIHEAP. That is absolutely true, but the
reality is we are not serving everybody who is eligible, and
really the one thing we do not want to do is start to force
choices where, in order to put elderly people on LIHEAP we have
to take somebody else who is equally deserving and equally
needy off LIHEAP. When we talk about the increase in the bills
this winter, that increase is bigger than the LIHEAP grant. So
if we give everybody that we gave a grant to last year this
year, they will still be worse off than they were last year in
terms of their overall energy bill. So the LIHEAP issue,
which--I mean, the State put nearly $25 million--for the first
time Pennsylvania has put money into the LIHEAP program. I
would love to say that AARP could take great credit for that,
but the reality is I just think it is partly advocacy, but it
is partly the fact that they are looking and saying, ``You know
what? We are in deep trouble here and we have to do
something,'' and on that level you have been a champion of
LIHEAP, and we need a champion. When this session reconvenes,
we need LIHEAP assistance and we need somebody to make sure it
happens, and I am urging you and your colleagues--I know we do
not have a defined source for it, but we have a very defined
need for it, and we have to meet that need. If we do not, a bad
situation in Pennsylvania and nationally is going to be worse.
Finally--and you have nothing to do with this, but I am
hoping maybe you could help--Pennsylvania has about 20,000
households right now who have no heat, has about another 15,000
who have no electricity, and it has about 4,000--these
estimates are from the PUC--who are heating with things like
space heaters or kerosene, which are very dangerous. We allow
people to be shut off in the winter if their income is above a
certain level. Given what we are looking at, at prices, when
you get the chance perhaps and are speaking to your colleagues
in Pennsylvania, we may need to relook at that, and I urge
whatever you can do when you talk to them, see if you can get
them to rethink that one. But the most important thing is that
we need additional funding for LIHEAP, whatever you can do, and
the fact that you are holding these hearings, I know you know
this is important. We need you to be the champion when you get
back.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Griesbach follows:]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you. I appreciate that, and we have
been and we certainly will be, and I appreciate your advocacy
for senior's heating needs.
Our final testimony is from Major Deborah Sedlar, who is
the program secretary for the Divisional Headquarters of the
Salvation Army. Thank you very much for coming and being with
us this morning.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR DEBORAH R. SEDLAR, PROGRAM SECRETARY,
SALVATION ARMY DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS, PITTSBURGH, PA
Ms. Sedlar. Thank you for your invitation this morning,
Senator. We appreciate it, and while the Salvation Army does
not have expertise in these areas, we do have some observations
that come from meeting with the folks who are within our
communities. I actually represent the Western Pennsylvania
Division of this area, and it is roughly half of the State, but
it is 28 counties, to be precise, and our headquarters is here
in Pittsburgh. So we are grateful that you convened here. That
is rather convenient for us. There are some issues that come up
when it comes to the elderly folks, and I merely want to make
some observations to you from the Salvation Army's perspective.
We have provided 1,320 families with energy assistance, and
that average supplement was about $125, totaling approximately
$165,000 in the last year. This is exclusively through
Salvation Army units. Most of the funding is generated through
government grants or private foundations that we have secured.
The funding pool is decreasing annually as the need rises. Once
the resources are depleted there really are no alternate
funding sources, except to draw from other provisions of
service that we have. In other words, if we are paying out
energy bills, then perhaps we cannot assist as many people with
food or other things that we generate. Agencies that serve as
conduits for these funds often change annually, such as the
FEMA funding program or the LIHEAP or the Dollar Energy.
Sometimes the agency to which a client must go changes
annually, so they do not know from year-to-year where to go,
and it becomes rather confusing. Some funding sources are
restricted to one-time use. We often have foundational things,
criteria that hold us to just a once-in-a-lifetime use of that
emergency funding. Transportation issues for the elderly and
communication barriers contribute a great deal to an already
strained system of assistance that particularly impacts these
folks. I think about the new programs that are coming out for
prescription benefits for many of the elderly folks. They are
extremely confused by that, so to try and broach the idea of
trying to get some help to pay the energy bills--I think they
would rather stay home and be in the cold than try to do this
on their own. Assisting this population base presents very
unique challenges, and most seniors have a deep sense of pride
and are often embarrassed and ashamed to ask for assistance.
In the United States, more than 3.5 million children are
raised by grandparents. This presents a new problem to many of
these folks. These multigenerational homes require increased
social services in order for these families to thrive. Heating
is not something that can be done without when you have
grandchildren in the house with you. Often impoverished elderly
often have substandard and older housing units that are not
energy efficient, and subsequently that creates increased
higher costs, probably more so than many of the newer homes
that are more energy-efficient. As the energy costs increase,
so does every other cost to live. The cost for food will go up.
The cost for any other basic need--clothing--will go up.
Retailer costs will increase as the cost of energy goes up
because they have to maintain their operations, as well.
Collaborative efforts are having the most impact from what we
can see as an agency and an organization, but that often means
that an individual who needs assistance has to meet with a
number of agencies in order to draw from multiple resources,
and this becomes very confusing to an elderly person.
So we appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today and
certainly we commend you for your efforts and would welcome any
help that you can give to this area for these purposes.
Senator Santorum. Thank you very much, Major. Just to pick
up on what you were saying, because when I was listening to the
testimony from Bill and Jimmy I was struck by the number of
programs that both of the companies have, and then I hear your
testimony that this is very, very confusing for a senior. Do
you guys have a response? Is there a way that we can help sort
of cut through?
Mr. Hecht. Yes. We do work with the same agencies, so the
social service agencies that are in our communities are
multiple--community action committees, Salvation Army, other
charity groups. So we do work with those agencies and bring
them together to allocate our customer assistance money. We
also work with the agencies when we refer our consumers that
are identified with a problem to individual agencies, so we
know which services the different agencies provide, which
services fit the needs of consumers when we learn what some of
their challenges are. I did spend an afternoon a couple of
years ago with what we call our CARES representative, or
Customer Assistance and Referral program representative, making
house calls, and saw firsthand that many of the consumers that
have difficulty paying their energy bills have other
challenges. We can help identify what they are and send them to
the right agency, but it is true that although we have great
benefits from private philanthropy in the U.S., at the same
time that private philanthropy does get channeled through
multiple agencies. That is a fact.
Mr. Staton. Senator, I would agree. It is a fact, that it
does come through multiple agencies. The way we have attempted
to try to address that is on staff at Dominion Peoples we have
two social workers as part of our CARES program and we actually
do a casework approach, if you will, to helping our customers,
so that we help them go through the entire process and not just
simply refer them, because I think we have certainly seen the
same thing. We can refer to multiple agencies but our customers
are never going to get all of the help that they truly need.
Senator Santorum. Do you have a comment on that?
Ms. Sedlar. I think these gentlemen are accurate, and they
even do a great deal within their bills to provide information
to people who might need help and where to call and where to
go, and that is a referral process, unfortunately, because then
when the person calls the company, they are referred to the
specific agency in their area and have to then make another
call. As an older person, that is more difficult than being a
younger person. I think the elderly also do not have the access
to Internet, which is becoming such a thriving area. I think
about, in terms of the Yellow Pages, it is now costing agencies
and organizations and businesses to post their information
within the Yellow Pages so many more are opting not to do that.
They use Internet sources because they are economical. The
elderly do not have that. They have the Yellow Pages that come
to their home every year or so, and that is what they have to
work with, so they do not have access to all of the
possibilities that they might need, and they might give up a
whole lot easier than a younger person might. Again, I want to
say there is competition for the dollars, as in getting there
first to be able to get the access to them. Once the dollars
run out, then there is no more. If there is that type of
competition, the elderly folks are left behind because they are
not out there first, they are not the first to hear about it.
They are pretty much the turtles in the race, so to speak, by
virtue of their own person.
Senator Santorum. Mr. Griesbach, you have a statistic here
that caught my attention. You said lower-income older Americans
spend an average of 14 percent of their income on residential
energy. Do you know what that number is in Pennsylvania? Is it
higher here, or do you have information on that?
Mr. Griesbach. I do not know. This is a national figure.
Senator Santorum. Right.
Mr. Griesbach. We are trying to find out for Pennsylvania,
but we do not know. It has not been broken down that narrowly
yet.
Senator Santorum. OK. In listening to the testimony from
Mr. Hecht and Mr. Staton, I was struck with the programs that
you have in place to be able to help those in need, and then
particularly, Mr. Staton, you talked about the other side of
the equation, and that is what do we do to try to drive any
energy costs down, and even though this is a meeting on LIHEAP,
obviously part of the equation or the need for LIHEAP is the
fact that we have seen skyrocketing energy prices, which we
talked about with the first panel. You mentioned something
interesting to me, that you get 40 percent of your supply from
Pennsylvania. I suspect that that would surprise most people in
the room, that there is that much production of natural gas--I
assume in western Pennsylvania--predominantly in western
Pennsylvania. You said that new wells produce approximately six
million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Can you give me an
idea of what--I do not know how much six million cubic feet of
natural gas--I mean, maybe people in the audience do, but I do
not know what that is. I mean, how much is six million cubic
feet? What does an average consumer use? Is it millions of
cubic feet or thousands of cubic feet? I mean, what does that
mean?
Mr. Staton. Generally customers will use about 100 MCF or
100,000 cubic feet of natural gas on an annual basis in our
service territory.
Senator Santorum. So you say they would use 100,000 cubic
feet. So that is one customer?
Mr. Staton. One customer, on average.
Senator Santorum. Yes, so six million cubic feet does not
sound like a lot of gas to me.
Mr. Staton. Six million cubic feet a day.
Senator Santorum. A day. Oh, OK. I'm sorry. A day?
Mr. Staton. Yes.
Senator Santorum. Well, then that is a little bit more.
That is a little bit more. [Laughter.]
That is six million cubic feet of additional capacity?
Mr. Staton. Yes.
Senator Santorum. OK. Forty percent of what you use in
natural gas comes from western Pennsylvania. How much is that?
Mr. Staton. In total, we deliver about--40 percent would be
about 12 billion cubic feet.
Senator Santorum. Twelve billion?
Mr. Staton. A year.
Senator Santorum. A year, OK. Is it your sense that there
is more natural gas production capability here--I mean, a lot
more here in western Pennsylvania?
Mr. Staton. I would love to say that there is. Appalachian
supplies generally are not as dramatic as, say, the Gulf Coast
supplies. When you drill in the Gulf Coast you get huge
benefits in a very short period of time. You do not get that
big of a bank for the buck, if you will, but there is still
capability in western Pennsylvania and the rest of the
Appalachian Basin to continue to bring on additional resources.
It is just a matter of being able to get the permits that are
necessary to drill and to bring it to market.
Senator Santorum. The question I have, and one of the
concerns that I know a lot of folks have with respect to any
kind of energy production, and that is the environmental impact
of that. We sit here in Pittsburgh, and I guess most folks here
would really not know very much about what are the
environmental impacts of drilling a natural gas well. Can you
talk about that, because I certainly know from the issue of
offshore drilling, one of the big concerns is what are the
environmental impacts of offshore drilling and maybe they are
different than the environmental impacts of drilling here in
the Appalachian Basin, but can you give us an idea of what that
is?
Mr. Staton. The environmental implications--in the old days
of drilling, you ate up a lot of space, a lot of land, and you
created a lot of disruption, if you will--arguably you created
a lot of disruption as you drilled for natural gas or for oil.
With the newer technologies that we have and the capabilities
we have, we are not drilling as many holes in order to get the
same results, if you will. So the environmental impacts have
dropped dramatically as a result of better technology, better
underground technology, and greater reach from single
locations. Directional drilling, for instance, would be an
example of where in the past you might have to drill in a
particular area. In an acre of land or 100 acres of land, you
might need a well per acre in order to drain the reservoir. Now
you can do that in a much more limited space. So the
environmental impacts have dropped dramatically, and again we
are caretakers of the environment as we drill, and when we are
done drilling, restoring the land to where it needs to be has
become a much greater effort.
Senator Santorum. A couple of other things that you
mentioned I just want to go through to talk about the impact.
You mentioned the permitting process. Is there something that
you believe Congress can do to deal with that permitting
process? What is the complication here?
Mr. Staton. Let me give you an example. As Margot indicated
earlier, the natural gas market is a national market and the
prices are driven by national supply and demand. Dominion
currently drills on Bureau of Land Management property in Utah,
and that would be a good example. We have plans to drill, in
2006, 75 wells in Utah. Each of these wells will cost us about
$1 million and will produce about a million cubic feet of gas
per day. Currently we only have 33 drilling permits in hand in
order to be able to do that, and the process--again, we have 75
prospects, but only 33 permits. The process is taking now 7 to
8 months to get these permitted for a process that should only
take a couple of weeks. I would point out when we make the
application, all of the environmental work has been done
beforehand, and so the process should be streamlined. The
Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave BLM additional funding and
broader new authorities to eliminate their backlog of permit
applications. We have committed a significant amount of capital
and other resources. We would just like to see the BLM do their
part, and we do believe that with some pressure from Congress,
the BLM will do what they were permitted to do in the Energy
Policy Act.
Senator Santorum. On the first panel, Margot mentioned and
you reiterated that this is a national price as opposed to an
international price for natural gas. Having read in the paper
of the dispute between Ukraine and Russia and looking at the
price of natural gas in Russia, which was just like, what, a
dollar or something like that, as opposed to 9 or 10--it has
been as high as $13 or so here in the United States. In the
Middle East it is 50 cents for what we pay $13 for, which--
unlike oil, which has a world price and that is what everybody
pays, that is not the case here. So it is very much tied--here
in Pennsylvania where we are dependent upon natural gas, it is
very much tied to how much we can produce here in this country
to meet this demand. You mentioned a couple of other things
that I think are important. We did pass a bill that allows for
a pipeline to come from Alaska. There is a lot of controversy
about drilling for oil in what is called ANWR. This has nothing
to do with that. This has to do with where drilling is going
right now, which is on the Prudhoe Bay, where we drill for oil
and we send the oil down the oil pipeline, but up in that same
area--in fact, coterminous in some cases with the oil--is gas,
and the gas is, to my understanding, just pumped back into the
ground. Actually the gas does come with the oil, and they just
have to pump the gas back into the ground because we have no
way to get it here. So this pipeline which we passed, I guess,
2 years ago is hopefully something that will get a major
reserve of gas into our country.
The other issue is LNG, which you mentioned and Margot
mentioned earlier from the Caribbean, but LNG is another
potential source of internationalizing, if you will, the price
of gas by having gas liquefied and then being able to be
shipped. I guess the question I have is what are the
limitations on our ability to make LNG a viable source of
natural gas?
Mr. Staton. Currently I would say it is capacity. Dominion
owns the Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland, and it is one of
only four in the country currently that can receive natural gas
or can receive liquefied natural gas. What we need to be able
to do----
Senator Santorum. Just for the technology point of view,
you receive the liquefied natural gas from Qatar, for example?
Mr. Staton. Yes.
Senator Santorum. It comes here, and you have a plant there
that receives it and processes it?
Mr. Staton. We have a plant there that receives it,
gasifies it again, and then we deliver it into our pipeline and
deliver it up into the Northeast and into the Mid-Atlantic area
of the country.
Senator Santorum. It has the same properties--once you
gasify it, it has the same properties as----
Mr. Staton. There may be some that dispute that right now,
but yes, it has essentially the same properties, flows through
our pipelines just like any other type of natural gas.
Senator Santorum. OK.
Mr. Staton. What we need to be able to do is to continue to
permit additional facilities and to----
Senator Santorum. Does this have the same permitting
problems as a refinery would have in the sense that people do
not want an LNG facility in their backyard, if you will? I
mean, I guess we could have one here along the river or
someplace, but what goes on there that people would not like to
see have go on in their neighborhood?
Mr. Staton. Again, it is really a relatively low-key
facility. It does not look like a refinery. It is a series of
tanks and gasification facilities in a very contained area. I
think aesthetics is not the primary issue. I think folks are
concerned about potential terrorism impacts, which again, with
liquefied natural gas, that is really not a problem.
Senator Santorum. Why is that?
Mr. Staton. The ability for it to burn is not what people
would think. It is the same as natural gas. Natural gas only
burns within very defined limits. Liquefied natural gas in its
liquid form is not particularly flammable, but nevertheless
there are folks that raise that issue as a concern due to a
lack of understanding. So I think it is somewhat aesthetics,
but I also think it is unwarranted concerns, if you will, as to
safety.
Mr. Hecht. Yes, I would reinforce that. There are fairly
well-publicized issues that have come to light in the proposed
expansion of a number of LNG terminals and the proposed
establishment of other LNG terminals in the U.S. Their
construction has proceeded much more slowly than the
marketplace would suggest it should. The debates have been over
safety and security, primarily. There is a process being
followed. It takes more time to work through that process and
bring LNG online than many of us would like to see. I would
suggest that the market indicated that natural gas prices were
rising and the market was tight even before Katrina, and
Katrina certainly magnified the shortage in supply.
I might also reinforce the statements of others regarding
environmental permitting. We have a very limited amount of
natural gas production, very, very limited, much smaller than
my colleague. In one particular case we found it economical to
make a charitable contribution of the mineral rights rather
than attempt to get the environmental permits to produce the
gas.
Senator Santorum. OK. Just a final comment on the LNG
facility, because this was somewhat of a--there is a
controversy on the other end of the State, in Philadelphia,
about trying to site an LNG terminal in the Philadelphia area,
and I am not an expert on this, but community groups, upset
about that facility in their neighborhood even though the
proposed facility is along the Delaware River, separated by an
industrial sector and I-95 and then the neighborhood--but that
is still--it looks to me like they are not moving forward on
the facility as a result of that. So I wanted to make sure that
that is in the record in the sense that we talk about
Pennsylvania being dependent upon natural gas, and then when we
try to bring more supply in here to get the cost down so
heating bills are not so high, then we have all sorts of
impediments to try to get more energy here into this country.
It is one of those things where you cannot have your cake and
eat it, too, and somehow or another we have got to work out
something where we are going to try to drive--we pay more for
natural gas in this country than any other country in the
world, and that is because we just simply do not produce what
the demand is and we do not allow those countries that--the
price of natural gas in Qatar is 75 cents, I think that's what
it is. We pay, what, 15, 20 times that here, and we want to
take that natural gas at that price, liquefy it, bring it here,
and we cannot. So it is a frustration, but it is something that
all of those who are advocates for energy assistance need to
understand, that we would not need as much advocacy for energy
assistance if the energy costs were lower, and there are ways
to get those costs lower, and we just need to be conscious
about pursuing those also in a way that is safe and
environmentally friendly.
I was notified 15 minutes ago that Secretary Richman will
be here in 5 minutes. So we have sort of gone off in a little
different direction--I won't say stalling for time--but wanted
to give Secretary Richman every opportunity to come here so she
could testify.
I do not have any additional questions. If anybody has any
other comments that they would like to make for the record, our
panel will accept them.
Mr. Griesbach. I am not known as the AARP expert on the
environmental stuff, and if there is a way to do this more
efficiently and quicker, that is good. We do have a problem in
the here and now that is imminent, and no matter what we do on
these issues, this imminent problem is not going to go away.
These programs that they are running to help low-income people
are terrific programs, but just in Pennsylvania alone, while we
have about 300,000 people, 300,000 households that got LIHEAP
assistance last year, the projected need is probably 1.4
million households. So we are not near reaching--and add all
these programs together, make them all totally efficient so
that they are all working together, and we are still not there
yet in terms of providing the kind of heat----
Senator Santorum. Yes. Of the company-sponsored programs,
how many folks do you reach compared to the LIHEAP program? I
mean, what is the total universe of folks? Obviously, you
potentially know from your companies, but do we know what the
philanthropic and corporate participation is, how many people
were served?
Mr. Hecht. I can give you a general idea, Senator. LIHEAP
probably helps about 3,500 recipients--no, that is not correct.
Senator Santorum. You said 300,000, right?
Mr. Griesbach. Statewide.
Mr. Hecht. That is Statewide. Among our customers, LIHEAP
is probably more than half of the total direct cash assistance
that we are able to provide. As I think I pointed out----
Senator Santorum. Would you say you are fairly typical of
most utility companies, that LIHEAP is the majority of the
assistance?
Mr. Hecht. We may not be, Senator. I would not want to say,
because we serve primarily middle-sized cities, 100,000
population or lower, and the urban areas have their own set of
challenges that can be different than the rural and midsize
cities and suburban areas that we serve.
Senator Santorum. Jimmy, do you have any----
Mr. Staton. My numbers are not significantly different. In
total, we have about 10 percent of our customer base, or in the
30,000 customer range, that are receiving either LIHEAP help or
are part of our Customer Assistance Program.
Senator Santorum. I guess the breakout between who gets
LIHEAP and who gets----
Mr. Staton. About 20,000 of our customers receive LIHEAP
assistance.
Senator Santorum. So about two-to-one.
Mr. Staton. Then about 10,000 under the CAP program.
Senator Santorum. You finished your answer just at the
right time. Secretary Richman just walked into the room, so----
Mr. Staton. Always willing to help, Senator.
Senator Santorum. We have had an interesting discussion on
a variety of topics, Madam Secretary, in making sure that we
spent enough time to make sure that you could get here, because
we knew you were trying hard to come and we wanted to make sure
that your efforts were rewarded. This is a reward? I don't
know. Some may not think this as much of a reward, but if this
was your objective, then----
Ms. Richman. This is my objective.
Senator Santorum. Madam Secretary, thank you so much for
making the extraordinary effort to be here, and I will let you
offer your testimony. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF ESTELLE RICHMAN, SECRETARY OF PUBLIC WELFARE,
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, HARRISBURG, PA
Ms. Richman. Thank you. First let me officially thank you
for the action taken yesterday and comment on that.
Good morning, Senator.
Senator Santorum. You can thank assistant secretary Horn,
who was the person who declared that emergency or executed that
emergency.
Ms. Richman. Well, thank you.
Good morning, Senator Santorum. I am Estelle Richman. I am
the secretary of public welfare for the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity
to discuss what we are doing in Pennsylvania to help the
elderly and some of our most vulnerable citizens stay warm
during this winter season. We are only 2 weeks into the
official winter season and already much has been said and
written about the potentially dangerous situation that many
Pennsylvanians will face this winter because they cannot afford
to heat their homes. We need help. The rising cost of home
heating is putting tremendous financial stress on all of our
citizens of low and even middle income, but this is especially
true in the case of people who are elderly and on fixed
incomes. According to the PUC, the cost to heat homes with gas
is expected to rise about 50 percent this year, and the cost to
heat homes with oil is expected to rise 32 percent. As of
December 15, over 21,000 households were without use of their
central heating system, an increase of more than 19 percent
from last year. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 increased the
authorized spending level for LIHEAP to $5.1 billion annually.
To authorize is one thing, to appropriate is another. Unless
further action is taken in the next congressional session,
which as you know convenes in mid-January, LIHEAP will receive
only the $2.1 billion in the Labor-HHS Education bill that
passed the Senate. This amount is less than half of what was
authorized and woefully inadequate to support the number of
households here in Pennsylvania and across the country that
will need energy assistance this winter.
When adjusted for the 1 percent across-the-board cut to
discretionary funds, this means that the regular LIHEAP program
will receive approximately $1.98 billion, and the 1-year
contingency funds are approximately $181.1 million. In
Pennsylvania, this translates into about $133 million in basic
funding, about 5 percent higher than last year, but
unfortunately not nearly enough to keep pace with the 40-
percent average increase in home heating costs. The $7.6
million in contingency funds that were announced yesterday for
Pennsylvania will still leave us short of needed funds.
Demand for assistance through LIHEAP is very high so far.
As of December 30, 2005, we had already received 322
applications for the cash component of LIHEAP. This represents
a 5-percent increase over last year and means that over 17,000
additional Pennsylvania households have requested basic heating
assistance so far this winter. We have seen a 15-percent
increase in crisis applications, as well, from just over 38,000
at this time last year to just over 45,000. Already over
6,000--nearly 7,000--more households in Pennsylvania are facing
a heating crisis than at the same time last year. The simple
fact is we need more Federal funds to protect at-risk
Pennsylvanians from the cold in the coming months.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell's response to the
situation is a multi-pronged initiative called Stay Warm
Pennsylvania. Stay Warm was launched at the beginning of
November when the Governor convened a statewide energy summit
that brought together 180 stakeholders. During this live
statewide videoconference, the Governor and top Cabinet members
heard firsthand from a broad range of the public and private
sector leaders and consumers about what our energy needs would
be for this winter. The summit generated real solutions and
real ideas on ways for Pennsylvanians to stay warm and safe in
the winter. The LIHEAP program is the foundation of Stay Warm
Pennsylvania. Other key components include encouraging energy
companies to help low-income consumers manage their heating
bills, ensuring that low-income families get a second chance to
pay their bills before their heat is shut off, removing
barriers for families seeking to have their service restored,
and assembling volunteers to help seniors winterize and take
care of their homes to help lower energy costs. In addition to
working with the utility companies, the Governors have secured
many key partners in the Stay Warm Pennsylvania initiative,
among them are the United Way, the Red Cross, the Salvation
Army, the AFL-CIO and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches.
As I noted a moment ago, LIHEAP is at the center of Stay
Warm Pennsylvania. For more than 25 years the LIHEAP program
has been helping citizens who are unable to pay their utility
bills in the coldest months. To help supplement this vital
program, Governor Rendell asked for and has received an
additional up to $21 million from the State Legislature. This
is the first time since the inception of the program that the
State has put in its own funds into the program and
demonstrates the commitment that Pennsylvania has to helping
our citizens stay warm and safe this winter.
The increased State and Federal funding is critical. With
the dramatic increases in energy costs, our estimates show that
we will need approximately $50 million in additional funding to
maintain LIHEAP purchasing power just to provide assistance to
the same number of people as last year. Much more will be
needed to provide assistance to the number of households that
will need help this winter. Keeping in mind that this
Committee's focus is on the energy needs of older
Pennsylvanians, I would like to point out that the Department
of Public Welfare works very closely with the Pennsylvania
Department of Aging to ensure that seniors in Pennsylvania know
about LIHEAP and how to apply for this important benefit. In
preparation for this year's heating season, we sent out
outreach and application materials to the 54 Area Agencies on
Aging and 518 senior centers across Pennsylvania. In addition,
seniors who received a LIHEAP grant last year were
automatically mailed an application for this year's program.
During the 2004-2005 winter season, more than 128,000 of
the households that received LIHEAP assistance had at least one
person over the age of 60. This represents roughly one-third of
our total number of households served. As of December 24, the
Department had authorized both cash and crisis benefits for
approximately 75,437 households which have at least one member
over the age of 60. This is nearly 40 percent of the total
approved households. With the additional funding coming from
the State and Federal sources, we are hopeful that we can
increase the level of support to older Pennsylvanians and other
low-income households. In addition to the work we are doing
with the LIHEAP program, the Governor is reaching out to the
broader community to help those in need through Stay Warm
Pennsylvania. For example, the Governor has secured agreement
from Pennsylvania's utility companies to take voluntary steps
to ensure that their customers have heat this winter even if
they are having trouble paying their bills. The utilities
answered the call to action by expanding existing programs that
help customers pay their bills, by reducing or eliminating
disconnections and by removing hurdles poor citizens face to
reconnect fuel service.
The Governor challenged the CEOs of the State's major
utilities to double enrollment into the Customer Assistance
Program. This is a State program that requires participating
energy companies to provide grant recipients with reduced
monthly energy bills. Our efforts to partner more actively with
these companies are already bearing fruit; 12 utility companies
have pledged $12 million in new funds to protect low-income
households. Another successful partnership is with Lowe's,
which operates 60 home-improvement retail stores in the State.
They have agreed to hold weatherization workshops on a regular
basis at senior centers and other locations and to provide
weatherization materials at no cost to volunteer groups that
will winterize the homes of seniors and families in need.
Through outreach with community organizations, we have
assembled a corps of volunteers to weatherize homes, aid the
frail and elderly, and establish warm rooms in homes and
community centers. In Pennsylvania, we have developed a broad
strategy so our most vulnerable citizens are not left out in
the cold this winter. While working to address the immediate
energy needs of low-income citizens, we are also taking steps
to address the larger issues surrounding our energy needs in
Pennsylvania and throughout the Nation. The Governor is moving
quickly and effectively to make Pennsylvania a leader in clean
and sustainable energy initiatives. Investment in wind energy,
biodiesel fuel production and converting old waste coal to
diesel fuel will bring clean, renewable sources to Pennsylvania
that will meet the needs of Pennsylvania citizens and boost the
State's economy. This portfolio of energy investment has placed
Pennsylvania in the lead among States in the Energy
Independence 2020 Plan, a national effort to reduce dependence
on foreign oil.
At this time I would like to conclude my remarks and again
thank the Committee and the Senator for inviting me to offer my
comments here today on behalf of the Rendell administration.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richman follows.]
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Senator Santorum. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary, and
you were well worth the wait. I appreciate it. I just was
making some calculations based on some of the numbers that are
in your testimony. You say LIHEAP funding, according to the
numbers that you provided, was about $140 million, $21 million
from the State program, $12 million additional from corporate
programs. So we are looking at $173 million in funding, of
which it looks like close to $40 million of that is new money.
Ms. Richman. That is right.
Senator Santorum. So that is a fairly substantial increase,
obviously not as big an increase as we have seen in the cost,
but I think there is some good news here, is that the State and
the corporate community, as well as Congress, has done
something, although as I said earlier we wanted to do a lot
more, and my hope is that when we get back next year, that we
can figure out a way to get some additional funding through.
But I would put out a warning that just to put additional money
on the table without some mechanism to offset where that money
is coming from is going to be a very, very tough thing in a
budget that the President is going to lay out here in about a
month that looks to be probably in the area of $400 billion to
$500 billion in deficit this year, which is substantially
higher than it was last year. So I just put a warning out that
I am going to do everything I can, and I have been doing
everything I can, to try to get more energy assistance money,
but we are going to have to find some way to offset this, and
my hope is that we can bring back the idea that went down in
the Senate. Hopefully, we can come back and do some
refashioning of that and hopefully be successful, because a $2
billion addition, basically doubling of the Federal commitment,
would be more than what you had even asked for to meet those
needs.
Mr. Hecht. Senator, if I may clarify an answer to an
earlier question and also help put LIHEAP in perspective as a
fraction of the total, our company last winter had about in
excess of $22 million of private assistance. We have increased
that to $28 million, and in addition LIHEAP last winter
provided $6.3 million. So that gives you a proportion of the
private funding versus the scope of LIHEAP to our corporation.
Senator Santorum. So LIHEAP is a much smaller----
Mr. Hecht. LIHEAP is a much smaller fraction than my
earlier response to you, in our total funding.
Senator Santorum. You do not have those numbers?
Mr. Staton. I do not have those numbers, but dollar wise I
would imagine we are not too dissimilar.
Senator Santorum. OK. Well, it would actually be helpful
for me--and we can certainly, Madam Secretary, pursue this--is
to understand what the scope of aid out there is. I mean, I
think you talked about the increase being $12 million on the
corporate side. The question is what is the base? To look at
all of the money that is coming from all different sources to
help those in need, it sounds to me it could be certainly well
in excess of the number that we are talking about here. So that
is something that we need to get a better handle on and
understand where that money is being spent.
You mentioned also, Madam Secretary--I cannot pass up the
opportunity--the Governor's efforts on clean coal and taking
waste coal and turning it into diesel fuel, and we actually
just 3 weeks ago--well, the week before Christmas--were able to
pass a technical correction that needed to be passed to
authorize a loan guarantee for that project, which is in
Schuylkill County, which is on the other side of the State,
Pottsville area, which will take coal which is basically
sitting in piles all over the place, old anthracite waste coal,
and turning that into zero-sulfur diesel fuel, which also can
be used for home heating oil. That is a project that I have
been working on for 6 years. We were able to get a $100 million
Department of Energy grant 3 years ago, and that grant has been
turned into a loan guarantee which will guarantee $450 million
in the project, which basically will make the project go.
The State has agreed to be a purchaser of that fuel when
the plant gets operational, but this could be a prototype of
something that could be incredibly beneficial for the
environment, cleaning up the environment, producing home
heating oil here in Pennsylvania, and creating jobs at the same
time. It is not just waste coal, but we can also use--that is,
waste anthracite coal--but we can also use bituminous coal here
in western Pennsylvania and create facilities of the same kind.
So it is about a $700 million construction which is going to
happen here in Pennsylvania, so there are jobs related to that,
plus the production of--we could be an oil-producing State here
in Pennsylvania here again.
Ms. Richman. That would be very nice.
Senator Santorum. Yes, but I just want folks to know that
we have got to look at this holistically. You cannot just look
at it as the immediate need. Obviously, the immediate need is
one that we need to deal with, and we have people that are in
crisis right now, but we are going to be back here again year
after year after year unless we do something with the bigger
picture. So that is one of the reasons I wanted to expand into
that, and we have been working cooperatively with the Governor
on this project, and it is an important one for me and one that
we hope to make happen here in the next couple of years.
With that, I do not know if anybody has any additional
comments. I just want to thank everybody for attending, and we
are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Prepared Statement of Senator Rick Santorum
In June, Chairman Smith held a hearing to examine the
effect of high energy prices on the elderly and how the basic
need of heating their homes can be met. Now that winter is
here, the increasing cost of home heating fuel weighs heavily
on the minds of the elderly and the rest of the American
population. Many of our seniors are having to decide what they
must sacrifice in order to make ends meet.
Prices of this winter were already projected to be
considerably higher than last year; the advent of Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita has made projections even more sobering. For
example, the Energy Information Administration's December
Short-Term Energy Outlook shows that on average, consumers will
spend 38 percent more for natural gas this winter than they did
last winter.
Pennsylvania routinely faces harsh winters and is home to
the third-highest percentage of seniors in the country.
According to the 2004 American Community Survey, approximately
53 percent of Pennsylvania's elderly households rely on natural
gas to heat their homes; 26 percent use fuel oil; and 15
percent heat their homes with electricity.
The primary federal heating assistance program is the Low-
Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In FY2005, over 128,000
Pennsylvania seniors received LIHEAP benefits. According to the
LIHEAP Home Energy Notebook, the three-year (2001-2003) average
number of elderly households eligible for LIHEAP under state
guidelines was nearly 330,000. In 2003 (the most recent year
for which data is available), only 32 percent of those
households actually received benefits. Compared to other
states, Pennsylvania is ranked third for most number of elderly
receiving this benefit in 2003.
Unfortunately, as we know, LIHEAP does not reach all of
those who are eligible. Since being a member of the House of
Representatives, I have been an ardent, vocal supporter of
LIHEAP funding. We cannot minimize the importance of this
program; however, the purpose of this hearing is to take
another look at the prices of home heating fuel now that winter
is well underway and to hear from some of our witnesses about
efforts they are making to help alleviate these burdensome
prices for some of our most vulnerable citizens. Participation
by private companies is vitally important to ensuring the
warmth of our seniors. In addition, the tireless efforts of
countless non-profits is commendable and essential. By
continuing to raise awareness for this basic need of our
elderly population, it is my hope that government, together
with the private sector, can improve the assistance given to
these individuals and reduce the number of those living with
little or no heat.
I look forward to hearing your testimony and thank you for
your time today.
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