White House revives effort to eliminate aid program

PORTLAND, Maine — The Trump administration is again calling for the complete elimination of a heating aid program that helps to keep the homes of low-income families warm.

The administration is using the same arguments from when it tried to abolish the program a year ago, saying that it’s rife with fraud and that no one would be left freezing if the program goes away.

“These arguments are very misleading and wrong,” said Mark Wolfe, director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association in Washington, D.C.

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, helps families pay their heating bills, primarily in the form of a grant that is sent directly to utility companies or heating fuel vendors.

President Donald Trump tried to eradicate the program last year but encountered resistance in Congress. In October, he released nearly $3 billion, or roughly 90 percent, of the funding.

“If the president turned around and did away with that funding, I have no idea how we’d survive in the winter,” said Dwayne Labrecque, a diabetic who is on disability after losing several toes and part of his foot to infection.

Labrecque’s income plummeted when he lost his job as a shipping manager, leaving him to cobble together an existence for himself, his fiancee and their five children in the rural Maine town of Hartford.

The Trump supporter said he hopes the president has a change of heart.

LIHEAP is popular in both cold-weather and warm-weather states, like Florida and Arizona, where it also distributes money to keep people keep cool in the summer.