U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud says he’s hoping Congress will approve a bill during the lame duck session after November’s election that would prevent low-income heating assistance funds in states like Maine from dropping below 2010 levels.
Michaud said Friday he has introduced legislation to change the funding formula for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, so states where at least 25 percent of homes rely on oil heat don’t see their funds for federal heating assistance fall below fiscal year 2010 levels.
“We need to ensure that states like Maine that continually face high home heating oil costs are made a priority,” Michaud said in a statement.
President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget has proposed trimming LIHEAP funding as more households move away from oil to cheaper heating sources like natural gas. But more than a quarter of households in Maine and seven other states — mostly in the northeast — rely on oil for heat.
The law would ensure indefinitely that LIHEAP funding for those states doesn’t fall below 2010 levels.
Michaud introduced his bill about a week after Sen. Olympia Snowe announced that the continuing resolution Congress has been considering to keep the federal government funded for the next six months contains language in it that keeps funding for low-income heating assistance at last year’s levels.
Participation in LIHEAP has risen 54 percent since 2008, according to the National Energy Assistance Director’s Association. Some 8.9 million households relied on the program in 2011, according to the association.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services allocated $38.6 million in LIHEAP funding to Maine last season.
Gov. Paul LePage last week signed onto a letter with 13 other governors urging Congress to fund LIHEAP at last year’s levels.
What else is Mike hope for.. to get re elected….nice free PR piece from the BDN.. Everyone running for office is hoping for the same thing.
He should and he will get re-elected.
I am all for heating assistance …………but that money would better be spent insulating older homes…..so we wouldn’t have to depend so much on heating assistance in the first place…..plus it would create jobs for the community.
You couldn’t find ONE qualified contractor to do that in Aroostook County or a couple of other counties when that program was in effect.Maine has some of the oldest housing stock in the country.
maybe they should bring some of that foreign aid back home for home energy projects.
If you can’t afford heat, move out of Maine!!!
I would happily move out of Maine but I’m retired and disabled, unable to move. I don’t like having to depend on LIHEAP funds but unless and until we elect a president who doesn’t do all in his power to block the development of our massive domestic oil and gas reserves I don’t have any choice but to accept this charity. It is inexcusable that Barack Obama has chosen to handcuff American oil and gas producers, in pursuit of “green energy” which doesn’t and won’t amount to a p*ss hole in a snow bank, while giving millions in aid to countries like Brazil to develop offshore oil for its own use. The money he has thrown down the rat hole of green energy could have heated my home for years, so don’t tell me to move out of Maine. I’d rather see Obama be moved out of the White House. Incidentally, where the h*ll was Mike last year when Obama completely gutted the funding?
This is necessary for the New England region as a whole, and Maine in particular. Since we are so close to Canada, we seem to be the first to feel the cold fronts that head south.
Too bad Kevin Raye is against this. Michaud is the only one supporting seniors and our veterans.
This is nothing but a PR piece to try and help Michaud who is on the verge of losing his re-election bid. Too bad Mike doesn’t tell us how he plans to pay for this. Oh, that’s right, he doesn’t care.
“Participation in LIHEAP has risen 54 percent since 2008, according to the National Energy Assistance Director’s Association.” Hasn’t Obama been running the this country since 2008.
On the verge of losing? Apparently your fox news poll is as twisted as it’s news. Good luck with your pipe dream.
You must have been home schooled. President Obama took office Jan. 3, 2009.
Nice try apple pie.
Raye is one weird fellow who has already lost.
actually jan 20th when he was sworn in. but there still has been an increase in consumption do to the economy of which both parties and the independents are responsible. once everyone figures out that not just one party or president is fully responsible for this mess things may improve.
The full employment for government drones act. Over $1,000,000 in LIHEAP money goes to the government hacks who run the program (and that’s just in Maine, no telling how much is wasted in DC) Not one of those dollars is used to deliver, store, or pump the oil. That’s just to write the checks for someone else to do the actual work. THAT’s what Mikey should be looking into. But that would be too much like actual work.
I think they need to stop giving people heating assistance so they can get other goodies, or assistant programs, when they have heat already paid for, and others need the help, but are put onto waiting lists. I think they should still allow those people who I think shouldn’t be getting heating assistance because they already have heat, to have assistance for other things they need assistance with.