Plan to eliminate heating aid faces fight
PORTLAND, Maine — The summer air is sizzling as the Fourth of July approaches, yet 86-year-old Richard Perkins already worries about how he’s going to stay warm this winter.
President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating heating aid for low-income Americans, contending it’s no longer necessary and rife with fraud. People needn’t worry about being left in the cold, he says, because utilities cannot cut off customers in the dead of winter.
But the heating program provides a critical lifeline for people like Perkins, and officials close to the program don’t see any widespread fraud. Guidelines for winter shutoffs by utilities vary from state to state and don’t apply to heating oil, a key energy source in the New England winter.
“It’s beyond my thinking that anyone could be that cruel,” said Perkins, a retired restaurateur who relies on the program to keep warm in Ogunquit, Mainae.
The proposal to kill the program, which has distributed $3.4 billion to about 6 million households this fiscal year, will face strong opposition in Congress.
Forty-three senators from mostly cold-weather states already signed a letter urging the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on an appropriations subcommittee to ensure funding for the Low-income Energy Assistance Program.
In Maine, the poorest state in New England, the program helped about 77,000 people over the past winter, and those numbers represented less than a quarter of eligible households, said Deborah Turcotte of Mainehousing, which helps to run the program.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who contends the program doesn’t demonstrate “strong performance outcomes,” said difficult decisions are necessary to streamline the government to focus on the administration’s goals of defense and public safety.
The program already has undergone substantial cuts.
The average benefit has been reduced by $100 from 2010 to 2015 as funding was slashed during the Obama administration. That coincides with Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. ending participation in a free-oil program run by a Massachusetts-based nonprofit.