[Senate Hearing 110-859]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-859
CLIMBING COSTS OF HEATING HOMES: WHY LIHEAP IS ESSENTIAL
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE RISING COSTS OF HEATING HOMES, FOCUSING ON THE LOW INCOME
HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (LIHEAP)
__________
MARCH 5, 2008
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming,
TOM HARKIN, Iowa JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
PATTY MURRAY, Washington JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
JACK REED, Rhode Island LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
J. Michael Myers, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Ilyse Schuman, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
?
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008
Page
Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., Chairman, Subcommittee on Children and
Families, opening statement.................................... 1
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., Chairman, Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions................................. 3
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alaska.... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Reed, Hon. Jack, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island... 8
Power, Meg, Ph.D., Senior Advisor, National Community Action
Foundation, Washington, DC..................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Frank, Deborah A., M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Boston
University School of Medicine, Director of Grow Team for
Children, Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA.................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Hussain, Robin, Resident, Hartford, CT........................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 27
Surber, Regina, Director, Community Programs, Department of Human
Services, Nashville, TN........................................ 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
.............................................................
Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA), The New
England Fuel Institute (NEFI), and the Independent
Connecticut Petroleum Association (ICPA)................... 46
National Energy Assistance Directors' Association............ 48
(iii)
CLIMBING COSTS OF HEATING HOMES: WHY LIHEAP IS ESSENTIAL
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Children and Families,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:21 a.m. in
room SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Christopher
J. Dodd, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Dodd, Kennedy, Murkowski, and Reed.
Opening Statement of Senator Dodd
Senator Dodd. What I will do here this morning with
everyone's permission, if I may, is I will make a quick opening
statement myself on this issue, and the Chairman of the
committee, Senator Kennedy, is here to make some comments this
morning. I know he can't stay as long as he would like because
of other obligations.
Then I will ask, obviously, Senator Murkowski as well for
any comments that she may have. Senator Reed has long been
involved in the subject matter of low-income energy assistance.
Then we will get right to our witnesses, and I am grateful
to all of them for being here and those of you in the audience.
I would like to thank everyone for coming together this morning
to consider the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
(LIHEAP). For 27 years, since 1981, LIHEAP has helped millions
and millions of Americans pay their heating bills and keep
their families warm or cool, as the circumstances require.
I would like to welcome and thank all of our witnesses, who
will provide testimony here this morning. Many of them will
explain the critical importance of LIHEAP to American families
and how many more Americans could be assisted if we, in
Congress, would expand LIHEAP's reach and increase the
program's funding.
For almost 30 years now, LIHEAP has kept thousands of
Americans from having to make the impossible and very difficult
choices between heating their homes, feeding their families,
providing for their medical needs. It has made the difference
between having money to pay for a mortgage rather than facing
foreclosure in the spring. It has allowed senior citizens to
afford to heat or cool their homes without sacrificing other
necessities, such as prescription drugs.
Clearly, LIHEAP is about much more than heat or cooling. We
will hear from our witnesses it is intertwined with many other
aspects of a family or an individual's life. LIHEAP is not just
a heating and cooling program. It is a home ownership program,
a nutrition program, certainly a health program.
A family that struggles to pay its energy bill may be
forced to turn off heat, to cut back on purchasing nutritious
food, or go without the necessary medications. A child who
can't sleep from hunger or cold can't pay attention in class in
the morning. He will be more prone to illness, putting further
pressure on schools and our healthcare system.
This year, more and more families are faced with those
dilemmas. This all becomes quite obvious if anyone has paid any
attention to the news in the last few weeks. The slowing of our
economy has brought higher unemployment. In my own State of
Connecticut, unemployment has risen 24 percent over the last
year. As families all over are losing income, rising fuel
prices are stretching their energy budgets like never before,
certainly in recent memory.
Just this past week, we saw the price of crude oil reach
well over $100 a barrel. By the way, last evening I heard some
energy experts talking about it. They were saying it is no
exaggeration to think that the price of a barrel may exceed
$200 before very long at all. That these numbers are going up
radically, the demand is increasing. Of course, you saw the
President calling upon OPEC nations to increase more supply
without any success at all.
This is just the beginning of a problem that is going to
grow worse in many ways. An increase, by the way, to $100 a
barrel is an increase of 73 percent just from last year alone.
Heating fuel prices have risen dramatically. The U.S. Energy
Information Agency estimates that this year it will cost $1,962
to heat a home with oil. That is a 33 percent increase from
last year and 117 percent increase since 2004.
The cost of heating a home with natural gas has gone up 30
percent since 2004, and the cost of heating with propane, which
heats homes in many rural areas across our Nation, has
increased 23 percent in the last year and 73 percent since
2004.
As a result of these drastically rising costs, heating
assistance that made a real difference for families just a few
years ago is obviously no longer doing the job. Our LIHEAP
dollars are being stretched way beyond their capacity. Again,
in my home State, Connecticut offers, I think, a good example
of what is going on. In 2008, nearly twice as many households
as last year ran out of their basic LIHEAP benefits by January
14. January 14 in a State where nights can stay freezing well
into March or even April.
When basic benefits run out, crisis assistance kicks in.
Many families exhaust that as well, leaving them with virtually
nothing at all. In 2007, that was true of 211 families in my
State. In 2008, how many families did this happen to? Just to
give you an idea, 2,981. In 1 year, from 211 families to 2,981.
As both the price of oil and the number of families in need
has risen, the funding we need to help them has remained
basically flat for a quarter of a century now. That means we
have been forced to pick and choose who can stay warm through
the winter, who will spend it shivering. Six out of ten
eligible families get nothing at all. Thankfully, emergency
LIHEAP funding was released in January and again 2 weeks ago.
Still, it is not nearly enough to cover the projected
shortfalls.
Families are counting on LIHEAP, and they are counting on
us to fight to fund it fully, if we can. Six out of seven
families are making do without heat at all. Six out of seven
families are being forced into impossible choices, as I
mentioned earlier, between warmth, food, and medicine. This is
six families too many.
Before I close, I would briefly like--wait, I will come
back to this. I was going to introduce our witnesses, but let
me do that after we have heard from the other members of the
committee here. With that, let me turn to Senator Kennedy just
for an opening quick comment?
The Chairman. Lisa.
Senator Murkowski. No, Mr. Chairman.
Opening Statement of Senator Kennedy
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much, Senator Dodd and
Senator Murkowski, Senator Reed. Thank you very much for having
this hearing and for your continued very important and good
work in fighting for the increase in LIHEAP funding.
It has been a bipartisan effort. I thank Senator Murkowski,
Senators Snowe and Collins. Bernie Sanders has been very
involved. Jack Reed has been fighting for this for years, and
Senator Dodd has been one of our true leaders, and I thank you
for doing this.
I want to express appreciation to a wonderful panel of
witnesses. They just are people that will tell it as it is, and
we are very, very lucky to have you. Particularly glad Dr.
Frank, who will talk about the impact of the lack of heat on
children and children's development, children's health, which
the Chairman has mentioned, but is really enormously important.
It seems to me that the LIHEAP recipients are in the middle
of a perfect storm, a perfect storm. The explosion of costs for
oil this winter has been something which has been just so
dramatic and so out of step with people on fixed incomes. We
will hear about that. The pressure is on so many of these
families that have lost jobs, and the fact as the Chairman
knows all so well, the whole dramatic impact of the housing and
mortgage crisis, where people are in real danger if they can't
pay the mortgage.
We are used to hearing a choice between food on the table,
prescription drugs for the parents, and heating oil. Now we
have the additional kind of burden, and that is whether they
can afford to pay their mortgages, and it is all affecting and
hitting a very special group of people. It is a definable
group, and they are our neighbors and our fellow citizens, and
we know what needs to be done.
It used to be that in Massachusetts, generally, it is about
four tanks--you can correct me, Dr. Frank--about four tanks
last a wintertime. If you received, you would get--only about
40 percent of those who are eligible receive it. In
Massachusetts, we are somewhat higher than the national
average. You maybe get one tank of that, maybe a tank and a
half. Not even--it is less than that? Well, you are going to
straighten us out on it.
This is just an incredibly challenging, and you are going
to tell us about how long that tank is going to last, depending
on your house and depending on the family, number of children
that are in it.
We had a wonderful testimony, Ms. Margaret Gilliam from
Dorchester, who is looking after two children and the
challenges that she faces. I think that this is just that we
know what needs to be done, we know how to do it, and the real
question is whether we have the will to do so. I want to thank
Senator Dodd and others who are really leading this battle to
help us to make sure that we are going to get the job done.
Final point, it is interesting that if that family is
driven out of their home, the cost in Massachusetts for a
homeless family is $32,000 per year for a family of four. We
are talking about a tank of fuel oil to keep the family
together in their home or the risk that that family is going to
be driven out their home and all the additional kinds of costs
that are going to be out there.
This is a no-brainer, and we just want to thank you for
highlighting this challenge. We want to say that we will work
closely with you in every possible way to see if we can't
provide some relief for these needy families.
I thank the Chair.
Senator Dodd. Senator, thanks so much. Again, sometimes I
feel like I am stating the obvious to all gathered here. You
mentioned Jack and Senator Murkowski and others involved, but
none of this would have ever happened over the years without
Senator Kennedy. That just doesn't happen. We are very grateful
to you for years of commitment to this issue.
This has been a subject matter that has enjoyed some good
bipartisan support over the years. For those of us who live
with it every year in our States, we understand how critically
important this is.
With that, let me turn to Senator Murkowski.
Statement of Senator Murkowski
Senator Murkowski. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Dodd. The good news for us in Alaska is it is starting to warm
up, but it has been a very tough, tough winter back home.
You mention, Senator Dodd, the energy information
statistics. I was at an Energy Committee hearing yesterday,
where EIA presented their annual report, if you will, an
analysis of oil on the market and what was happening with
energy prices. Yesterday in the hearing, they predicted that
heating oil prices are likely to rise marginally higher before
slowly falling to 2016, and then we are going to see oil rising
again, reaching a nominal value of $113 per barrel in 2030 for
oil.
Electricity also is expected to continue to rise, peaking
at 9.3 cents per kilowatt hour in 2009, another nearly 15
percent increase before we see a little bit of a slowing. They
also stated at yesterday's hearing, as they stated at the start
of this winter, that energy costs were going to cost the
average household between 8 to 39 percent more to heat and cool
their homes this year.
The news is not good in terms of indicators and where we
are going with our high energy costs. You have, Senator
Kennedy, mentioned how long a tank of home heating fuel will
last the average family. We know that the LIHEAP aid is
currently providing on average about $314 to the typical home.
At that current price, it is enough for about a single tank of
oil, enough to last a family maybe a couple weeks to a month,
depending on climate and temperature.
You know, in the State of Alaska, where your winters last
longer, or Connecticut or Rhode Island, where your winters last
longer, that means that you have got a lot of time on either
end of that tank of fuel where you are on your own.
I mentioned the temperatures in Alaska. I was up in a
community a couple of weeks ago. The week that I was there it
was blissfully warm. It was about 40 degrees. The week prior to
that, it was 60 below zero. They had a 100-degree swing in
temperature. This is where we live. What we are facing in our
communities, in Arctic Village, for example, the cost of
heating oil last month was $6.36 a gallon. We see about $5 a
gallon in most of our other remote villages.
What we are seeing in terms of a percentage of income to
Alaskan families--on average through the communities on the
road systems--Alaskans are paying about 33 percent of their
income on energy costs. Those are the communities that are on
the road system. You get out into our isolated rural
communities, where you are not connected by road, 62 percent of
the income of a family is going toward energy costs.
Now you couple this with the fact that the only way to get
to these places is to fly. If you have a medical issue that
requires you to come to town, come to one of the cities, you
have spent all of your income for the year between energy and
transportation costs. This is a huge, huge issue for us. We
know that it is critical to the health of families to make sure
that you are able to be warm in the winter. It is not all about
us in the north. It is also vital to be cool in the summertime.
I know that we will hear testimony this morning that when
62 percent or 33 percent of your income is going toward energy,
where do you make up the difference? It is in the prescription
drugs. It is in the food. It is in all of those other things
that we, as families, face on a daily basis.
Mr. Chairman, I don't want to take up too much of the
committee's time with opening statements other than to
recognize that we need to do more when it comes to the issue of
LIHEAP, whether it is through increases to the funding amounts.
I know, Dr. Power, you are going to speak to some of the
proposals that might be out there for program changes. I look
forward to hearing that testimony.
It is something that so many have worked diligently on, but
the recognition is that the need for energy assistance is as
critical to America's families as assistance for welfare or
food stamps or Medicaid because this is part of what allows us
to be healthy.
I look forward to working with the other members of the
committee. I do have a longer statement that I would like to
submit to the record.
Senator Dodd. Absolutely.
[The prepared statement of Senator Murkowski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Murkowski
Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this subcommittee
hearing as we begin the process of considering a
reauthorization of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program--LIHEAP. I also would like to thank Ranking Member,
Senator Alexander for all his work on LIHEAP.
It is slightly difficult to separate the two immediate
issues involving LIHEAP from each other: No. 1, not having
enough money allocated to the program at present to help it
deal with the record-high home heating oil costs that poor and
even middle-income households are paying this winter, not
counting what they are facing next winter; and the high
electricity air conditioning costs households likely will be
facing come summer; and No. 2, how to make changes in the
program to help it work better and more adequately meet the
needs of Americans for energy assistance, assuming it is ever
``fully'' funded.
Just yesterday the Energy Information Administration
predicted that heating oil prices are likely to rise marginally
higher before beginning a slow fall to 2016 before oil prices
again start to rise, reaching a nominal value of $113 per
barrel in 2030 for oil. Electricity also is expected to
continue to rise, peaking at 9.3 cents per kilowatt hour in
2009, another nearly 15 percent increase, before electricity
slowly declines to 2016 before rising again in real terms until
2030.
EIA at the start of this winter predicted that energy costs
were going to cost the average household 8 to 39 percent more
to heat and cool their homes this year. Already 34 million
households in America qualify to gain LIHEAP aid--having
incomes of less than 150 percent of the Federal poverty level.
Unfortunately, there is adequate funding so that only 16
percent of those households currently receive any aid and those
households only receive on average about 17 percent of the
$1,864 a year average cost of heating and cooling a home.
LIHEAP currently is providing aid that averages $314 to the
typical home. That at current prices is enough for about a
single tank of oil, enough to last a family for 2 weeks to a
month, depending on climate and temperature. We are saying that
for the other 4 months of winter, much longer in Alaska, that
households are on their own.
Coming from a State like Alaska, that is a real problem. In
Alaska, where the cost of heating oil last month was $6.36 a
gallon in Arctic Village and often near $5 a gallon in many
other remote villages, heating oil was dominating family's
budgets. According to a 2006 survey by the University of
Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research, home
heating fuel/electricity was costing the average remote
resident $4,683 a year, compared to the national average this
year of $1,864. That means that where energy costs should cost
the average household between 4 percent and 6 percent of their
income, Alaskans are paying on average 33 percent of their
income on energy costs, that figure reaching up to 62 percent
of their income in remote communities.
While Alaska State government spends more on LIHEAP than
many States--Alaska providing the average household a $742
subsidy, compared to less than half that nationwide, it is far
from enough to make energy costs affordable for many.
As the testimony today makes clear, being able to afford
heat in winter and cooling in summer is much more than a simple
convenience. Sufficient heat is vital for good health. Babies
and toddlers and seniors especially need heat to allow for
mental development and to ward off illness. Efforts to
supplement heat from burning fire wood to using kerosene or
electric space heaters increase the risks of health effects
like asthma and increase the risks of carbon monoxide
poisoning, fires and other accidents.
Scrimping on food and prescriptions to be able to afford to
pay for heat and electricity can also harm children, hurt their
development and learning potential and increase the chances for
illness.
There is a good reason why LIHEAP was created 27 years ago.
Unfortunately, there is not a good reason why we have allowed
funding for the program to drop to such a relatively disastrous
level.
Given recent record prices for oil and significant hikes
for electricity, we need to find $2 billion to $3 billion more
funds to reach a theoretical full funding level of $5.1 billion
for this year--depending on whether you start with the
President's proposed spending for fiscal year 2009 of $2
billion or start with actual spending, plus contingency funding
that Congress adopted for fiscal year 2008.
This hearing is actually not about finding $800 million to
$1 billion or more for fiscal year 2008, or building $3.1
billion more of funds into a budget resolution for fiscal year
2009 and then finding the actual funds to pay for the
authorization. This hearing is about how we should change the
program during a reauthorization to make it work better for
Americans.
I know, given the Alaska experience, we need to not only
raise the funding to fully fund households with incomes under
150 percent of the poverty level, but likely raise that
threshold higher. Increasingly households that used to be
considered lower middle income are now in an energy
affordability crunch. That is certainly the case in my State of
Alaska.
We may also need to consider an expansion of the LIHEAP
program so that it covers other types of energy costs that
households have to pay. If you can't afford to get to work to
earn a paycheck, then you won't be able to afford to keep your
house warm or keep food on the table. Some more comprehensive,
hopefully short-term expansion of LIHEAP, may be needed unless
energy prices fall precipitously.
We also need to review all of the recommendations for
program changes offered by our witnesses. I particularly
appreciated the suggestions by Dr. Power in the National
Community Action Foundation testimony.
What I know is that LIHEAP is a vital part of the Nation's
safety net for low-income residents. It is as vital as welfare
or food stamps or Medicaid, because it is hard to remain
healthy, well nourished or able to work, if you are either so
cold that you can barely function or so hot in summer that heat
stroke is a constant danger.
LIHEAP needs to work well. It also needs to be adequately
funded. Even if in this time of a budget shortage, we need to
do better by this program. I welcome the testimony we are about
to receive on how we can make LIHEAP better fulfill its
promise.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Senator Murkowski. I would like to move forward with the
testimony this morning.
Senator Dodd. Thank you very, very much, Senator. Very
eloquently said. Connecticut had their strong winters, I can't
recall the last time we had 60 below anywhere.
Senator Murkowski. Come on up.
Senator Dodd. I know. It has been a while. I love it. It is
a beautiful State.
Senator Reed, thank you very much.
Statement of Senator Reed
Senator Reed. Well, thank you, Chairman Dodd, and thank
you, Senator Murkowski, for your excellent statement with
respect to an issue that concerns us all.
I want to thank the witnesses because you will, both from
an academic standpoint and also from a personal standpoint,
illuminate this issue better than we can. Indulge me for a
moment while I say a few words.
This program evolved after the price shocks of the 1970s,
and it was a vital safety net for low-income Americans then,
and it is a vital safety net today, who make tough choices.
Senator Dodd, Senator Kennedy illustrated those tough choices--
prescription drugs or food or mortgage payments--and the
choices are more difficult today than they were in the last
several years.
We are still in a situation where energy prices have a huge
impact on the budgets of families throughout this country, and
with the downturn of the economy, we are seeing the pressures
become excruciating. Oil has jumped over $100 a barrel. I never
thought in my life, and I guess I am at the point in life where
I say that a lot, that I would see a $100 barrel of oil.
With stagnant wages and fixed incomes--that is the other
phenomena we are seeing--these prices are beyond the absorption
capacity of most families. They are being squeezed--tough,
difficult circumstances. We have cold winters. Not as cold as
Alaska, but we have cold winters. In the summertime, in the
Southwest for the excruciating heat, people use LIHEAP just to
stay alive because they don't suffer from--particularly seniors
from being a heat casualty in the Southwest and the Southeast.
In fiscal year 2007, my home State of Rhode Island was able
to serve about 29,000 households with LIHEAP. This is just a
small fraction of those that qualified. LIHEAP provides a vital
safety net to these households, but unfortunately, LIHEAP
funding is not keeping pace with the demand. I was disappointed
last month, and we couldn't in the stimulus package include
additional funding for LIHEAP. We are going to try again.
LIHEAP needs this additional funding, and the President's
budget request for Fiscal Year 2009 calls for a 22 percent cut
to LIHEAP--not an increase, but a cut. Now, I don't know, but
when oil is surging at over $100 a barrel, driving up the
prices of all energy products, how do you propose to cut a
program, it does not even keep up with the price? That is just,
to me, difficult to fathom.
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association
reports that such a cut would force States to either cut grants
or decrease the amount of families. That is just arithmetic. We
have got to do better than that. We could actually face the
loss of about 1.2 million households if these cuts go into
effect nationwide, and that is a staggering number.
I think we should fully fund LIHEAP. That is $5.1 billion,
and I am disappointed about the proposed budget. I am prepared
to offer amendments on the budget resolution to support full
funding in 2009. The numbers are clear, but the story of LIHEAP
is not about numbers. It is about people, people who are
working hard and struggling mightily, and they need some
assistance.
I am pleased particularly that Dr. Frank is going to talk
about the impact to children. Senator Dodd and I have been
conducting some clinical experiments over the last several
years with the effect of many things on small children. Senator
Murkowski also. She is a little ahead of us. We look forward to
your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Thank you very much, Senator. Prior to that
time, it was merely an intellectual exercise.
Senator Reed. Policy, public policy.
Senator Dodd. Now it has become a very personal exercise.
Well, again, thank our colleagues who are here and talking
about this, and let me quickly introduce our witnesses.
Meg Power--Meg, we thank you for being here--is the senior
advisor to the National Community Action Foundation and
President of the Economic Opportunity Studies, and we thank you
very, very much for your work.
Deborah Frank, Senator Kennedy has already introduced in a
sense, a professor of pediatrics at Boston University Medical
School, is the founder and a principal investigator of the
Children's Centennial Nutritional Assessment Program. We are
looking forward to your testimony. You have heard all of us
address the issues of what happens to children in these areas.
Robin Hussain is from Hartford, CT, and will share her
personal story about LIHEAP. We thank you very much, Robin, for
coming down. I see sitting behind you some friends, who go back
a long time. Edith, good to see you here with us as well, from
community action programs in Connecticut.
And Regina Surber is the director of community services at
the Tennessee Department of Human Services responsible for the
administration of the LIHEAP program in her State, and we
obviously want to hear from you in terms of how this is working
and what it means in a State like Tennessee, a border State. We
have talked about our northern-tier States, and obviously this
is an issue that transcends just geography by low temperatures.
We thank all of you for coming. Let me ask, if I could,
this morning if we could keep your opening statements to around
5 or 6 minutes. I won't bang the gavel down. As with all
members here, even those who are not here, the record will
remain open for comments they would like to make, any
supporting documentation they think would be helpful to the
record, and that includes our witnesses here this morning.
Your full testimony and supporting information will be
included in the record as we develop this case for additional
funding.
With that, Dr. Power, let me begin with you, and we will
move right down as I have introduced you, and then we will get
to some questions.
Doctor.
STATEMENT OF MEG POWER, PH.D., SENIOR ADVISOR, NATIONAL
COMMUNITY ACTION FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Power. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is a pleasure and an honor to be here today to talk on
behalf of the Nation's community action agencies. They manage
about a third of the LIHEAP resources every year, and we
believe they see the vast majority of LIHEAP applicants who
come facing a crisis and need help quickly and need to have an
interview and a personal interaction with a system to deliver
this kind of help.
I am a little stumped because each of you has been far more
eloquent than I ever could be in describing the problems that
our testimony tries to quantify. I think it is important for us
to note and remember that this committee is where the LIHEAP
block grant was born in 1980 for the 1981 season. This is our
home, our mother, if you will, and each of you who is here
today, and Chairman Kennedy, and Chairman Alexander--former
Chairman Alexander--were tremendous champions of moving
legislation each of the times we have reauthorized. You have
all been champions of supplemental funding last year and this
year in the face of terrific political odds, and we are most
grateful for the bipartisan, multiregional support that this
program has enjoyed and that you still have the energy to keep
up the fight. Thank you for that.
The statistics cited on rising energy costs, particularly
the oil prices, are very dramatic, and they are a little mind-
numbing. The daily news is a macro kind of a number, and we are
going to try to bring those down to the family level for you
just so you have a few more numeric weapons in your arsenal
advocating for LIHEAP, as all of you do.
As you said, several of you said, Senator Reed was just
saying how oil prices have topped a historic mark. Eighteen
years ago was supposed to be the real dollar high water mark
for oil prices. Well, they have gone past that. The less-
trumpeted drama this year, although in 2006 it was headlines,
is the steady upward march of natural gas prices, and natural
gas is the fuel most households use.
A very little-noticed problem is that liquid propane gas
follows fuel oil prices, and liquid propane gas is not used
much in the Northeast, but it is a very common fuel in low-
income housing and in mobile homes throughout the Midwest and
the South. Those prices are essentially on the same trajectory
as fuel oil. It is a little harder because you have to get a
tank-full delivered--not the product, but the tank full of
propane gas. Our agencies in border States and southern States
and the Midwest are having a terrible time because homeowners
have to add LIHEAP and their own money together to get even one
propane delivery.
Some of the new figures we have tried to give you in
today's testimony simply to add to these eloquent arguments are
measurements of the energy burden, which is what we call the
bill that people have to pay for energy as divided by their
annual income, and it is astronomical this year, a new high.
LIHEAP-eligible customers, according to our forecast models,
can, as a group, expect to pay 17 percent of their income on
average. Of course, this is a number that reflects the extremes
that Senator Murkowski was just speaking of. Any New Englander
knows 17 percent is not the average, of course not for Alaska
and certainly not for New England. It is higher.
In fact, all fuel oil users, and most of them are in the
Northeast, are expecting to pay about 24 percent of income on--
sorry, 26 percent of their income on their energy bills this
year. Electric heat users will pay about 13 percent of their
income. There are tremendous differences in the impact of these
prices on households, none of them affordable. The average
American who is not eligible for LIHEAP has consistently been
paying about 4 percent of annual income and still that will be
the case this year.
About 40 percent of the people who are eligible for LIHEAP
are in poverty, truly very low incomes below the Federal
poverty guidelines. For them, the average energy burden
nationwide is going to be about 22 percent, essentially an
absurd figure. That is what it would take if they were able to
buy all their energy, pay all their bills.
LIHEAP can make an enormous difference in the regions where
the States are properly funded. Perhaps no State is now
properly funded. In those areas, it can expect to cover perhaps
20 or 25 percent of the bill if it is coupled with utility
discounts and other help. All together, this means, as the
Chairman has said, each of you has said, a tremendous
constellation of hardships, none of which are better described
than in the C-SNAP program study. I will leave that to Dr.
Frank.
The census finds exactly the same numbers under the SIPP
survey. LIHEAP is a unique tool because it can be directed to
the energy bills. In other words, households with high bills
get more help, and it is properly targeted. It is a terrific
tool for households who are working low-wage workers and need
only help with their energy bills to get by. Our community
action agencies see them.
It is also an important part of our efforts to help
families develop long-term self-sufficiency, so that they
become permanently able to maintain their family's economic
security without further help. That takes a while.
Finally, it is a terrific tool for leveraging other
resources. There are more than $2 billion of additional energy
benefits available for low-income people, very unevenly
distributed. Half of that is in California. A number of States
don't have any.
Those are utility discounts, those are charitable
contributions through fuel funds, and they are consumer
protections that help write off arrearages and waive fees, all
of them tied to LIHEAP participation and agreements with the
LIHEAP program. That is a very valuable tool for those agencies
out there that are doing a job to change customers' situations
forever, if they can, and for the mid-term at least, and it is
important to keep LIHEAP and strengthen the program so that
there is more of it everywhere.
I appreciate the opportunity to put this in the record.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Power follows:]
Prepared Statement of Meg Power, Ph.D.
Thank you for the opportunity to present the views of the National
Community Action Foundation (NCAF) which represents the Nation's 1,100
local Community Action Agencies. On behalf of our director, David
Bradley and our national membership, I want to thank the subcommittee
for its history of unwavering support for the LIHEAP programs from the
very year of its birth in 1981. Mr. Chairman, you have championed
energy assistance from the moment you were elected to the House of
Representatives; like Senator Kennedy, you have never failed to keep
the heat on every Administration and every Congress to, literally,
``keep the heat on.'' Senator Alexander, under your leadership the
subcommittee reported, and the Senate passed, a solid re-authorization
bill in 2003; NCAF was honored to work in partnership with you in that
effort.
Community Action Agencies (also called CAAs or CAPs) deliver about
one-third of the LIHEAP bill assistance resources to participants. We
estimate that our local agencies actually work face-to-face with the
vast majority of those who receive ``crisis'' assistance. CAAs
administer nearly all the LIHEAP funds devoted to Weatherization.
LIHEAP is second only to Head Start as the largest program in our
network.
My testimony is in three parts:
a situation report on the energy burdens that low-wage
workers, retirees and their families are carrying this very year;
a description of the ways Community Action uses LIHEAP as
part of a coordinated strategy to move participants closer to economic
security, and
NCAF's proposals for re-shaping the LIHEAP statute to make
the program an even better tool for helping energy consumers in the
21st century.
I. SITUATION REPORT: A FORECAST OF LOW-INCOME CONSUMERS' FY 2008 ENERGY
BURDEN AND BILLS
Consumers' energy bills for the gas or oil and electricity they
need to meet only the most basic requirements for safe housing have not
been higher in a generation, not even in ``real'' dollars. Every
region's small consumers are affected by the cost and by the rapid rate
of change. This year, once again, homes that rely on delivered fuels,
fuel oil and LP gas, will have the fastest-rising bills, as well as the
highest bills. Two years ago that dubious honor went to natural gas
users in several regions.
We measure the impact of household bills the simple way, much as
the Federal housing measure for affordable housing is based on the
percent of income represented by out-of-pocket expenditures: energy
burden is the percent of annual income a household must spend to buy
utilities (not including water) and all other residential fuels the
household uses yearly.
Sources: ORNL October 2007; EOS updates Feb 2008.
Heating and cooling together make up just 50-60 percent of annual
low-income consumer bills, depending on weather and price. Households
must pay utility bills that include all uses.
Forecasts based on an Oak Ridge National Laboratory model and using
updated Federal data \1\ \2\ on incomes and energy show that, during
this fiscal year, the population eligible for LIHEAP, about 34 million
households, can expect to pay an average of $1,864 for energy. That sum
will equal 17 percent of their average household income. The lowest-
income eligible consumers, the approximately 13 million in poverty,
will pay less, $1,644, but that bill is an even higher share of their
very low incomes: 22 percent. (Since energy burden is calculated by
dividing income by the energy cost, the lower the income the higher the
burden for the same energy bill.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Eisenberg, Joel F., Short- and Long-Term Perspectives: The
Impact on Low-Income Consumers of Forecasted Energy Price Increases in
2008 and a Cap-and-Trade Carbon Policy in 2030 ORNL/CON-503, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, December 2007, and January
MIDWINTER UPDATE. http://weatherization.ornl.gov/.
\2\ Details of the model and methodology are in the report: Power,
Meg, `` The FY 2008 Energy Burdens Low-Income Consumers, Economic
Opportunity Studies, and Washington, DC. www.
opportunitystudies.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charts 1 and 2 show forecast bills and energy burdens for the
entire eligible population and for the subgroup of eligible households
in poverty compared to all households with incomes higher than the
LIHEAP eligibility ceiling. Chart 1 shows the poor use less fuel, but
Chart 2 shows it costs them a far higher share of their very limited
incomes. Households not eligible for LIHEAP average a 4 percent annual
energy burden.
The incidence of high energy burden varies geographically. Chart 4
shows the average energy burden forecast for each Census division. In
six of the nine, LIHEAP consumers will have burdens at or above the
national average. The differences stem from both the expected bill
amounts and the income variation among the regions.
Chart 5 shows how the type of heating fuel a household uses affect
the size of its energy burden and the proportion of household income
left for other needs. Clearly, there is a basis for the LIHEAP
requirement to vary benefits as well as for flexible implementation
based on fuels and, as the graph suggests, based on the predictability
of extreme hardships of several kinds which will threaten those who use
deliverable fuels to heat in a normal winter. However, the clearest
message is that eligible families' after-energy disposable income will
be far too low to meet other basic needs for the year. Analysts have
developed several descriptive tools for quantifying the shortfall
between a minimally adequate annual budget and actual incomes. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Roger Colton has developed two tools for State and local-level
applied calculations of the impacts of energy costs on household
budgets and the difference between a livable income that includes true
energy costs and real household incomes.
The difference between affordable energy bills and actual bills is
calculated for low-income households State by State and posted at
http://www.homeenergyaffordabilitygap.com/.
His Home Energy Insecurity Scale parallels the measurements of food
insecurity. It was disseminated by HHS LIHEAP office in 2003: http://
www.fsconline.com/downloads/Papers/2003%2005%20insecurity-scale.pdf.
Will eligible consumers and others of modest means, really pay
bills of this magnitude? Millions will make partial payments and a
minority will receive help from LIHEAP and utility discount programs.
Others will experience catastrophic consequences, some families will be
forced to move; those with compromised health, including many children
with asthma and allergies, risk health crises from living in poorly
heated or un-air-conditioned space. The best documented effects are
those tracked in by Children's Sentinel Nutrition Project Dr. Frank
leads.
However, it is important to recognize that the choices low-income
energy consumers are making are even more complex than ``heat or eat.''
These don't rhyme as well, but Census surveys and opinion surveys
confirm that the choices frequently are:
See the doctor/fill the prescription or keep the lights/
refrigerator on?
See a dentist about this toothache or pay for heat?
Look for another apartment but buy the oil while we're
looking, or pay the rent and plug in a space heater because the power
can't be shut off until March?
Every one of these methodologically sophisticated studies and
surveys confirms that consumers will make such risky sacrifices to keep
warm enough and to keep the lights and refrigerator on. The C-SNAP
study brings life just some of the cold hard numbers reported in the
U.S. Census SIPP survey of Measures of ``material well-being'' \4\
which showed the national scope of energy-related hardships.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ See ``Supplemental Measures of Material Well-Being: Basic
needs, Consumer Durables, Energy and Poverty, 1981-2002.'' U.S. Census
Bureau, Washington, DC. P23-202, December 2005. Also a summary of
energy specific clusters of hardships in ``Making Ends Meet when Energy
Costs Soar'' Meg Power, Economic Opportunity Studies, Washington, DC.
www.opportun-
itystudies.org.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2001, 9 percent of U.S. households who could not afford to pay
their energy bills at least once during the year.
This was the most common of all inability-to-pay problems
reported by the 21 million households who could not afford one or more
essential services or goods that year;
The majority of those with un-affordable energy bills
experienced several hardships at once during the same period. The most
common listed in order were:
Experienced hunger (``critical food insecurity'');
Skipped medical or dental care; and
Missed rent or mortgage payment.
Nearly half had incomes too high for LIHEAP eligibility
and nearly every one of them was a working family. However, the number
and severity of simultaneous hardships rose in inverse proportion to
income, so that the lowest-income had the most simultaneous hardships
and the most severe or ``critical'' hardships.
Those in Poverty were by far the most likely to
experience crisis-proportion hardships: hunger, utility shutoff
and eviction.
At the time of that survey, 2001, prices were lower and the weather
was milder than at present. The gap between incomes at the bottom of
the national income range and energy prices continues to widen, the
first chart we presented demonstrates. Few if any other consumer costs
have dropped as a share of household income.
II. HOW CAN CAAS TARGET LIHEAP TO ENHANCE FAMILY ECONOMIC SECURITY
LIHEAP is an important tool in the fight to reduce poverty and
stabilize workers, retirees and to their families, but it has become
too small a lever by contrast to the energy burden that must be
relieved. In recent years, many middle class working families have also
swelled demand for these scarce resources. Many come in to the CAA for
the first time, having never before sought help from any government or
charitable program, but unable to pay the high bill to keep from being
disconnected from utility service or denied a propane or fuel oil
delivery.
How LIHEAP is Unique in CAA Anti-Poverty Initiatives
The reasons CAAs believe this distinctive energy assistance program
is more valuable to solve certain household problems that an equivalent
amount of generic emergency funding or income support are:
1. LIHEAP payments are structured, by statue, to address the great
variation in the size of energy bills, even among homes that look the
same and have inhabitants who have similar incomes. While climate,
geography and family size explain some of the diversity, experts can
only guess that aging equipment and the peculiarities of older
buildings have a lot to do with the fact that similar customers have
very different bills. The LIHEAP benefit matrix targets the energy
burden.
2. LIHEAP is an effective tool for leveraging partnerships with
suppliers. State LIHEAP programs are the largest ``residential''
consumer in their State; they transfer thousands of payments as
electronic credits to the participant accounts. Many utilities and
their regulators have reciprocated with consumer protections, free
waivers and discounts. Many CAA energy managers also have open access
to a utility customer service representative who can tailor flexible
payment and even debt-forgiveness arrangements for specific
participants and who is available to respond to emergencies in periods
of severe weather or disaster.
LIHEAP Supports Three CAA Strategies
A CAA uses this unique asset three ways. Each is intended to
contribute its core mission: building long-term economic stability in
partnership with their participant. As the subcommittee is well aware,
CAAs' approach is to coordinate different, appropriate resources and
maintain long-standing relationships with low-wage workers struggling
toward security. They use CSBG funds to manage the coordinated and
mobilized partners and funding. LIHEAP is one of the direct forms of
assistance essential to most, but not all, of our participants.
LIHEAP is used:
1. To prevent major economic destabilization of low-wage workers
and retirees uniquely threatened because of their high energy bills.
Every year eligible community residents who have never relied on LIHEAP
or other help come to their CAAs because their tight budgets could no
longer accommodate their higher energy bills. Such consumers are those
who have been ``getting by'' on very modest incomes and whose situation
has not changed, except for the dramatic increase in the cost of their
fuels. They generally seek and accept only LIHEAP help and perhaps
registration in utility discount or budget payment plans. No other form
of Federal or State support would be as effective at maintaining the
precarious economic independence as LHEAP: its benefits are geared to
the energy burden of households, and it is efficiently delivered and
coordinated by the CAA with related energy subsidies or protections.
a. In 2006, CAAs informal and desperate reports to NCAF here in
Washington chronicled a flood of such newcomers and others who were
ineligible, but of modest means and at great risk. (Fuel funds are able
to provide some over-income applicants with assistance for as long as
funds last.)
b. Many returned in 2007 when prices were similar to those in 2006,
or higher in the case of petroleum products, but received inadequate
help because LIHEAP funding was much lower.
c. At present, CAAs are reporting a new flood of ``new'' applicants
who are painfully realizing they cannot afford energy and still
continue to meet their other obligations.
d. Because benefits vary by energy bills and burdens which (unlike
local area rents, or even transportation and child care costs) fall
over a wide range even within the eligible group, the effective LIHEAP
targeting can result in effective prevention of family insecurity.
2. To stabilize those facing a major economic or personal crisis
that threatens their long-run chances of being self-supporting.
Many hardworking Americans fall into poverty as a result of
ordinary, but dramatic, personal tragedies--job loss, disability, loss
of a loved one, the needs of relatives. Without assets or adequate
credit, their loss may lead to many other setbacks and, eventually,
true poverty. CAAs have learned how a strong ``hand up'' early in such
a crisis can prevent lasting, catastrophic consequences, and LIHEAP
becomes one of the key resources needed to keep or re-establish safe
housing. For many, either new service must be set up or large unpaid
utility debts must be reduced. CAA staff have developed unique
relationships with customer service departments of major suppliers,
and, in most States, are able to negotiate concessions for their
families who are starting to recover from a crisis. These relationships
are one result of the ``leverage'' LIHEAP confers in the energy
markets. Because the program is the largest buyer of residential energy
in any service area, the vendors it works with are willing partners and
seek to keep information flowing as well as transactions, to the
benefit of the participant.
3. Finally, LIHEAP is an essential support for the long-term
development of family security for those who are working hard and
learning hard to open future opportunities with the support of their
CAAs. Their energy burdens will remain high until their incomes rise
significantly, even as the family is working hard.
LIHEAP is one of the key elements in building family credit;
participants in CAA family development programs and local asset-
building initiatives take part in financial education and budgeting
exercises. Some CAAs use LIHEAP as a base or match, for participant
out-of-pocket payments for energy after helping them join the utility
budget plan. CAAs' LIHEAP staff helps negotiate debt forgiveness plans
with utilities when possible.
Many demonstration programs funded with a REACH grant from HHS have
tested the use of LIHEAP as an incentive or family development support
in different program contexts. The State of Texas for many years served
only a limited number of younger consumers, but has invested
significant case-management resources in them and offers monthly LIHEAP
credits for participants who lived up to their development and self-
sufficiency goals.
Four States (NV, NH, NJ, and OH) integrate LIHEAP into a utility
rate structure that requires only a reasonable percent of monthly
income to be paid by the customer, with the balance of the bill picked
up by the rate-payers and LIHEAP. We see these experiments as the
beginning of a policy solution that engages all sectors in reducing
energy insecurity and the high lifetime costs of the risks from
unaffordable energy bills.
III. NCAF'S RECOMMENDATIONS RE: LIHEAP AUTHORIZATION 2008-2010 AND
BEYOND
Mr. Chairman, NCAF recognizes the fiscal constraints and the time
constraints that confront the 110th Congress and we realize the former
may persist well into the 111th. We believe that some changes in LIHEAP
requirements that can be judged without a massive program review or
evaluation would be very helpful immediately, and that other important
changes deserve some study to provide a basis on which the authorizing
committees can decide on changes in the near future.
Programmatic changes:
A. Preparing Formula Options for the Future: One of the important
changes that we believe urgently needs to be addressed after adequate
preparation is a change in the distribution formula. Clearly all
States' programs need far more resources. As the analysis above shows,
warm States' consumers are disproportionately affected by increases in
their energy bills, because the LIHEAP resource shortfall compared to
the need is so great. CAAS in the south and southwest especially face
extraordinary and growing demands for energy help and they exhaust
their resources within days or weeks, not a few months. We believe that
the formula now creates a major barrier to added funding because the
coldest States reap so little additional reward from new
appropriations. We suggest that, rather than committing to the current
formula indefinitely or to trying to re-allocate a too-scarce resource
on the basis of untested criteria, legislation should require the
Secretary of HHS or the Congressional Research Service to work with the
Census Bureau and deliver at least three options for a formula that is
fair to every State and ensures that, if the funding increases, every
State is a winner.
B. Other Evaluations to Guide Future LIHEAP: Another study NCAF
would like to see undertaken during short authorization through 2010 is
a compilation of the evaluation studies funded through REACH
demonstration projects. Reach grantees tested more effective or cost-
effective ways to deliver LIHEAP to specific groups or to all. The
Department has never reported on these nor suggested what best
practices might be helpful to many.
C. Program Changes that Support Family Stabilization: We believe
some changes are warranted now, including some that were in the 2003
committee bills. All of NCAF 's suggestions are outlined in an appendix
we would like to submit for the hearing record. The two changes that
would greatly improve CAAs' ability to use LIHEAP as part of
stabilization and self-sufficiency strategies now are:
1. States should provide assurance that no consumer who pays bills
timely will receive fewer benefits than another with the same
characteristics like energy burden, family size, income and other
criteria on which benefits are based. LIHEAP ``crisis'' policies that
provide more benefits for those threatened with a disconnection or
those without fuel undermine all the other programs' incentives for
participants to manage budgets wisely and build credit and assets.
States' benefit regulations that require a shut-off warning as a
condition for an additional benefit mean that this public policy
rewards non-payment; their CAAs see participants torn between making
their small contributions to suppliers timely or risking their credit
and raising their bills with penalty charges in return for hundreds
more dollars to help meet family needs. This problem persists in many,
but a minority, of the States.
2. Further, so-called Assurance 16 funding for working with
participants over time with an integrated set of supports has been
essential to many States' LIHEAP-related financial literacy and
security initiatives. LIHEAP administration funds are very restricted,
a limitation that works against careful targeting of benefits to energy
burden and providing integrated and sustained support to participants.
We believe the States should be allowed to choose the amount to use for
this purpose.
Funding
In the 2-year authorization bill, we would prefer to see, we
believe that a $6 billion authorization will give appropriators scope
to meet more needs, but not set an unrealistically high benchmark. We
have every faith in the Chairman's willingness to fight for emergency
funding in the even more catastrophic energy market events.
However, we believe that the conditions for emergency contingency
funding must be changed so that the factors that trigger a release are
predictable, fair and based on the reality of energy bills. We have
provided some proposed language in our attachment.
Thank you for your consideration of Community Action's suggestions;
we intend them as useful additions to the subcommittee's historic
record of leadership for the Nation's most vulnerable energy consumers,
and NCAF stands ready to work on improving and refining these ideas.
______
LIHEAP Reauthorization: Program Changes for Discussion
CHANGE THE PURPOSES
NCAF Proposal
(1) In subsection (a), by striking ``primarily'' and all that
follows and inserting the following: ``in meeting their immediate home
energy needs, making home energy costs more affordable, and preventing
household energy crisis, such as reducing home energy costs through
payment to, or on behalf of, participants, obtaining lower costs for
the home energy purchased by participants, and providing services and
resources that reduce the energy burdens of low-income home energy
consumers.''
Rationale
These purposes were added to the committee's reauthorization bill
which passed the Senate in 2003. They encourage the use of LIHEAP funds
for services, investments, and, of course, payments, that reduce the
``burden'' of energy bills. Examples would be services that enrolled
applicants in EITC or other appropriate programs, State discount
programs that advocate for protections that regulations provide, secure
other donations or support to correct energy-guzzling defects, etc.
The text also subsumes the original purposes; to keep both is
unnecessary.
MANAGE EMERGENCY FUNDS
NCAF Proposal
Requires Secretary to release Emergency Contingency Funds when HDD
or CDD exceed 10-year norm by 15 percent or more and/or in a month when
residential fuel prices rises to 20 percent higher than the 5-year
norm.
Rationale
This removes uncertainty about the release of contingency funds in
the event of extreme weather or dramatic price increases. It corrects
the present process which can appear capricious in the selection of the
variable that determines what State is funded.
ENCOURAGE NEW LEVERAGING
NCAF Proposal
Add an instruction to the criteria for disbursing leveraging
incentive funds to provide additional funds to newly-won leveraged
resources as determined by the Secretary.
Rationale
The leveraging ``incentive'' fund is a very small percentage of
LIHEAP, and States that add new leveraged resources reap miniscule
rewards. Its value as an incentive is somewhat restored by rewarding
recent initiatives more heavily than long-ago victories.
STATE APPLICATION
NCAF Proposal
Authorize States to submit 2-year plans.
Rationale
This would remove any Federal barrier to year-round activities to
enroll new participants, purchase fuel with advance contracts, etc.
change assurance 16 to allow state to set amount used for the purposes
NCAF Proposal
Add: ``The State may use funds authorized under this title, at its
option, to provide services that encourage and enable households to
reduce their home energy need, to make their energy costs more
affordable and prevent energy crisis, including needs assessments,
energy conservation education, counseling, and assistance with energy
vendors, and other benefits such as financial literacy asset-building
services, support for ameliorating housing conditions and costs,
provided that such services or resources have been demonstrated by a
REACH pilot program or through other formal evaluations to be as
effective as payments in making energy affordable for eligible
households.
Rationale
States need both more flexibility and incentives to move in the
direction of affordability programs. Demonstrated and evaluated
approaches that make energy bills or energy burden lower with
persistent results should be allowable.
benefit rules must not reward non-payment with higher assistance
NCAF Proposal
In section 2605 (B) after ``intervene in energy crisis
situations;'' add ``provided that no household shall receive higher
benefits as a result of non-payment of energy bills than another
household with the same needs energy burden and home energy type that
has paid energy bills more timely and thereby prevented energy
crisis.''
PAYMENTS BY STATES
NCAF Proposal
Provides the States will make payments to subgrantees according to
OMB's generic categorical Federal grant rules, i.e., will make
systematic advances for local agencies in good standing, not provide
reimbursement only.
Rationale
Block Grants are not governed by the same rules on timing of State
payments from Federal funds, and some States force local agencies to
advance LIHEAP vendor payments and management costs by using their
other funds or even borrowing. This affects all their credit
availability as well as other services and investments for low-wage
workers and their families. The provision means all States will start
up LIHEAP with an advance of funds for a short period of operations.
Then local grantees will apply for reimbursement or advances, as
needed, per the OMB rules governing all Federal grants except Block
Grants.
STUDIES
NCAF Proposal
Secretary works with expert regulatory organizations to adapt their
survey tools to State vendor agreement format.
Rationale
The National Regulatory Research Institute has recommended
Commissions adopt reporting requirements and formats for tracking
utility disconnections and residential bad debt information. States
could use an appropriately designed report as one element of their
LIHEAP vendor agreement.
NCAF Proposal
Secretary prepares report to Congress on options for funding
allocation factors that are fair to consumers in all States.
Rationale
The distribution formula stymies LIHEAP expansion because all
States would not benefit from growth. The Congress needs an objective
study presenting viable alternatives. This language sets out one
alternative for the criteria to use in suggesting formulae. An
alternative could be a CRS study options paper.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
NCAF Proposal
Authorizes up to \1/2\ of 1 percent of LIHEAP for studies, for
publishing REACH results, and for training/technical assistance.
Prohibits the use of these funds for Federal salaries or Federal
monitoring.
Rationale
Minimal LIHEAP data or analysis is performed. A decade of REACH
project evaluations remains uncollected and un-reviewed. This change
provides a bare minimum to allow timely review of data, reports,
sharing best practices, and study of potential improvements to the
program, including those set out in the ``Studies'' section.
Senator Dodd. Well, thank you very much, Doctor.
Dr. Frank, welcome. A pleasure to have you before the
committee.
STATEMENT OF DEBORAH A. FRANK, M.D., PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS,
BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, DIRECTOR OF GROW TEAM FOR
CHILDREN, BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER, BOSTON, MA
Dr. Frank. Thank you, Chairman Dodd and distinguished
members of the committee. I am honored to be here.
The C-SNAP project, which my colleague Dr. Cook, who is
here, and I and a number of the rest of us focuses on infants
and toddlers under 3, who are the most vulnerable and also,
except I guess for your grandchildren, the least visible of
your constituents. They probably are not knocking on the doors
of your office to brief your staff.
I would like to stress that all the research that I present
was completed by 2006 before the current exponential increase
in energy and food. It probably underestimates the severity of
the problem. I am here to tell you, rather than home doctoring
the malnourished babies I should be doctoring, that in the
basis of research and clinical experience LIHEAP is a child
survival program. LIHEAP is a child health program. LIHEAP is a
nutrition program, and LIHEAP is a child development program.
From the first days of pediatric internship, it is drummed
into our heads that the quickest way to make a baby stop
breathing is to let them get too hot or too cold. Parents know
that babies will freeze to death before they starve to death.
Given the risk of dark and cold, they cut back on food, and
that in itself jeopardizes children directly.
Remember that babies, 0 to 3, are developmentally in the
most rapid period of brain and body development. They are also
the most physiologically vulnerable to cold stress and to
hunger, and I can explain the technology later, if you want.
When babies divert scarce calories to keep up their body heat,
they don't learn and they don't grow.
Parents sacrifice on both fronts, living with food scarcity
while heating their homes unsafely with cooking stoves and
space heaters, using candles and kerosene lights, practices
which increase the risk of fire, burns, and carbon monoxide
poisoning. I want to call to remembrance Rebecca, who was 9. It
was her birthday. And Rouben, who was 11, who died in my
hospital 2 months ago because their parents were trying to keep
their bedroom warm with a space heater, which is what people do
when they are trying to make oil last.
Such fires account for 10 percent of all fires, but 40
percent of all deaths. Candles also are a huge cause of child
death, and often these occur in homes where the electricity had
been cut off.
Now, unnecessary deaths of children are the most soul-
stirring, but there are many other, much more prevalent and
serious effects of what we call energy insecurity that have
long-term and short-term ominous implications. In a sample of
almost 10,000 babies in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Little Rock,
Minneapolis, and Boston, about a third are energy insecure. In
this report, we show that they are not only more likely to be
hungry and sick, but what actually floored us, because we
weren't expecting it, is that they are 80 to 90 percent more
likely than their energy secure peers to be developmentally at
risk.
I am a developmental pediatrician. I know that if children
are delayed in these first critical 3 years, it is very hard to
catch up. Energy insecurity is not just a problem for little
children being sick and being hungry, but with them being less
ready for school long before they are out of diapers.
Now we know that there isn't just the disease, there is a
medicine. We know this from research, which was recently
published in Pediatrics, that there is a partially effective
medicine to protect children in this current epidemic of energy
insecurity. That medicine is called LIHEAP.
We found that when we compared renter families who were all
eligible for LIHEAP, but those who got it and those who didn't,
comparing for the background differences, if the children were
in a family that should be getting LIHEAP and weren't, they
were 23 percent more likely to be growing poorly and 32 percent
more likely to have to be admitted to the hospital the day we
saw them in an emergency room.
I would point out that a cost of a single 3- to 4-day
pediatric hospitalization for something routine, not ICU, costs
about $6,000. That would fund LIHEAP allotments for a whole lot
of families. Its child health track record, although not
perfect in LIHEAP, is better than many things we do every day.
The problem with this medicine is it only reaches, as you
heard, one in seven of the eligible, which is worse than the
flu shot. There are those who get it, where the dose is too
low. As Senator Murkowski saw, in Massachusetts right now, it
applies only about a third of the cost of a tank of oil, which
is about 2 weeks' worth of keeping somebody warm. Senator
Kennedy's information was probably 3 weeks out of date. It is
getting worse and worse.
Now food costs are the highest in 10 years as well as
energy costs, and they are linked. We are very concerned that
this very grim epidemic of cold, hunger, illness, and
developmental delay is going to affect an ever-increasing
number of America's children. We can diagnose the problem. Only
you, our leaders, can prescribe the medicine by increasing and
stabilizing LIHEAP funding, as Dr. Power said.
I am here to remind you again what my colleagues and I and
pediatricians like us around the country know, but is not noted
in most policy conversations, which is that LIHEAP is a child
survival program. LIHEAP is a child health program. LIHEAP is a
child nutrition program. LIHEAP is a child development program.
I am very thankful that you care enough to be here today to
show that you are willing to consider evidence-based policies
to the fuel future of our children, and I hope that you will be
able to guide your legislative colleagues so fewer of our
children will die or be chronically impaired by hunger, ill
health, and slow learning for want of safe and adequate energy.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Frank follows:]
Prepared Statement of Deborah A. Frank, M.D.
Chairman Dodd and distinguished members of the committee, my name
is Deborah A. Frank. I am honored to be given the opportunity to share
with you the experience of pediatric clinicians and the evidence of
pediatric researchers on the importance of the Low Income Home Energy
Assistance Program (LIHEAP). I am a Professor of Pediatrics at Boston
University School of Medicine and a founder and principal investigator
of the Children's Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program (C-SNAP), a
multi-site pediatric research group which focuses on the impact of
public policies on babies and toddlers under the age of 3 years, the
most vulnerable and the least visible of your constituents. I would
like to stress that all the research I am presenting was completed by
2006 before the exponential increase in energy and food costs in 2007
and 2008, so it probably underestimates the current level of risk to
our children.
I would be back at Boston Medical Center doctoring these
``invisible'' malnourished children, as I do most Wednesdays, if I did
not know on the basis of research and clinical experience that LIHEAP
is a child survival program, LIHEAP is a child health program, LIHEAP
is a child nutrition program, and LIHEAP is a child development
program.
LIHEAP, as you know, is instructed by statute to target benefits to
``vulnerable households with the highest home energy needs,'' defined
as those including either an individual with disabilities, a frail
elder, or at least one member who is a young child. This is a medically
sound choice. (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/liheap/perform/index/html
accessed 3/06/06). From the first days of a pediatric internship it is
drummed into our heads that the quickest way to make a baby stop
breathing is to let the environment become too cold or too hot.
Families, as well as doctors, know children will freeze to death before
they starve to death, so confronted with the dire risks of dark and
cold, parents turn to the only flexible part of a poor family's budget,
the food budget. This trade-off is not only often not adequate to avoid
chronic problems keeping the house warm and lights on, but also has
been shown by decades of research to jeopardize children's current and
future health and development by increasing the family's food
insecurity--what front line workers call hunger. A new report, Fuel for
Our Future, from the Children's Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program
(C-SNAP) demonstrates that even before the recent record surge in
energy costs, this ``heat or eat dilemma'' was depressingly familiar to
America's poor and near-poor families and their doctors.
These untenable choices wreak havoc on all our citizens, but
particularly on the health of our youngest and most vulnerable
children. Babies and toddlers ages 0 to 3, who developmentally are in
the most rapid period of brain and body development, are also among the
most physiologically vulnerable to cold stress. They lose body heat
more rapidly than older children and adults because of their higher
surface area-to-mass ratio. When babies' bodies have to divert already-
scarce calories to maintain body heat, cold and hunger intertwine to
jeopardize their current health and growth, as well as their future
ability to learn and relate to others. The 14 percent of America's
children of all ages who have special health care needs, although not
targeted in our C-SNAP sample, are also actively endangered by cold and
dark. Cold temperatures trigger painful crises among children with
sickle cell disease and severe attacks among children with asthma. The
health of children in general is threatened. How are parents to feed
their children safely if they have no gas or electricity for
refrigeration or cooking? How are they to administer nebulizer
treatments without electricity? How are they to keep babies clean
without warm water?
Low-income families pay a much higher percentage of their income
for energy costs than families with higher incomes--6 percent is
considered affordable, but many poor families pay 15, 20, or even 40
percent. This squeeze causes terrible choices. Federal research shows
that while both rich and poor families increase their expenditures on
home fuel in unusually cold months, poor families offset this cost
through decreasing food purchases with an average 10 percent decrease
in caloric intake. Many inevitably sacrifice on both fronts, living
with food scarcity while heating their homes with cooking stoves and
space heaters, using candles and kerosene lamps for lighting, practices
which increase the risk of fires, burns, and carbon monoxide poisoning.
I want particularly to call to remembrance in this context Rebecca
Zizi, age 9, and her brother, Rouben Zizi, age 11, who died in the
emergency room of Boston Medical Center (the hospital where I work) on
December 29, 2007 because of a fire started by the space heater their
family had placed in their bedroom--a common practice when parents are
worried they will not be able to afford enough heating oil to keep warm
throughout our long New England winters. Such fires account for only 10
percent of all heating fires, but 40 percent of all deaths. Indeed, it
is not just lack of heat but lack of light that can kill children--25
percent of all fatal candle fires occur in homes where the electricity
has been cut off.
While not as soul-searing as the unnecessary deaths of children,
there are many other serious and widely prevalent effects of families'
inability to afford adequate energy which have long term ominous
implications for the present and future well being of young Americans.
The health effects of energy insecurity surface on the bodies of babies
in emergency rooms at hospitals like Boston Medical Center during the
cold of winter. Long before the current energy crisis, we found a 30
percent increase in the number of underweight infants and toddlers in
the Boston Medical Center Emergency Room in the 3 months following the
coldest months, compared to the rest of the year.
More recently, my colleague Dr. John Cook, who is here today, and
the rest of the C-SNAP team have evolved and tested a measure of
household energy security, which is under review in a medical journal
as we speak.
We define energy security as follows:
Household Energy Security (HES) is consistent access to enough of
the kinds of energy needed for a healthy and safe life in the
geographic area where a household is located. An energy-secure
household's members are able to obtain the energy needed to heat/cool
their home and operate lighting, refrigeration and appliances while
maintaining expenditures for other necessities (e.g., rent, food,
clothing, transportation, child care, medical care, etc.). A household
experiences energy insecurity (HEI) when it lacks consistent access to
the amount or the kind of energy needed for a healthy and safe life for
its members.
This construct was put into practice as follows for families with
children under 3 years:
if in the past year the family had received a letter
threatening a utility turn-off but had not yet experienced it, they
were classified as moderately energy insecure;
if they had tried to heat the house with a cooking stove
or had suffered a utility turn-off or unheated or uncooled day because
of inability to pay the bills, they were classified as severely energy
insecure.
We were appalled to find in a sample of almost 10,000 babies and
toddlers seen in the C-SNAP sites of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Little
Rock, Minneapolis, and Boston, more than a third lived in energy
insecure households. This is really troubling since, in the subgroups
of impoverished babies and toddlers of color we already have looked at,
summarized in the C-SNAP report ``Fuel for our Future'' which is
available here today, energy insecure children were not only more
likely to be food insecure, but they were sick, sick enough to be
hospitalized. (I would point out that the cost of a single 3-4 day
pediatric hospitalization currently costs $6,000, enough to fund LIHEAP
allotments for 20 families.) What also really startled us was that
severely energy insecure infants and toddlers were 80-90 percent more
likely than their energy secure peers to be developmentally at risk. I
know as a developmental behavioral pediatrician that children have
great difficulty catching up from development delay during the critical
period of brain growth in the first 3 years of life. Energy insecurity
is associated not just with little children being sick and hungry, but
with them being less ready for school long before they are out of
diapers. These disturbing results hold true for children of all
ethnicities--because our paper is under consideration I cannot yet
share the details with you.
We do know there is a medicine that is partially effective in
protecting children from the current epidemic of energy insecurity and
its costly consequences, not just in human suffering, but in medical
and educational costs now and in the future. That medicine is public
energy assistance, which at the Federal level is called LIHEAP (Low
Income Home Energy Assistance Program). Research my colleagues and I
recently published in the medical journal Pediatrics shows that, after
considering background differences, children in LIHEAP-eligible
families who rent and pay for their own heat, but do not get LIHEAP,
were 23 percent more likely to be growing poorly and 32 percent more
likely to have to be admitted to the hospital on the day we saw them in
an emergency room than similar children in LIHEAP-eligible families
that do receive it. LIHEAP's child health track record, although
clearly not perfect, is better than many treatments doctors use every
day. There are two problems with this medicine: (1) it doesn't reach
most in need and (2) for those who receive it the dose is too low.
LIHEAP is currently funded to reach only about 16 percent of those
who should get it.
I was shocked to learn from Dr. Cook and his economist colleagues
that the average yearly LIHEAP grant has declined to $314.00 per family
per year, only about \1/3\ of the cost of one tank of oil, which
represents only enough oil to keep a family warm for about 2 weeks.
This is down from an already inadequate $427.00 in fiscal year 2005
when our study was in progress and the cost of home energy was high but
not as high as it is today. Thus the LIHEAP ``medicine'' doesn't reach
most of the families who need it and, for those who do get it, the dose
is what doctors call ``subtherapeutic''--below the level needed for
adequate treatment.
With food costs the highest in 10 years and energy costs the
highest on record, my pediatric colleagues and I are deeply concerned
that this already grim epidemic of cold, hunger, illness, and
developmental delay is going to effect ever increasing numbers of
America's children. We can see the problem evolving just as clearly as
we see a new and dangerous strain of influenza. We pediatricians can
diagnose the problem, but only you, our leaders, can make the treatment
available in adequate doses to more of those who need it by increasing
and stabilizing LIHEAP funding. I am here to remind you again what
pediatric clinicians and researchers know but has not been addressed in
most policy debates--LIHEAP is a child survival program, LIHEAP is a
child health program, LIHEAP is a child nutrition program, and LIHEAP
is a child development program. I am so thankful you care enough to be
here today to show that you are willing to consider evidence-based
policies to fuel the future of our children. It is my hope that you
will guide your legislative colleagues to make decisions so fewer of
America's children will die or be chronically impaired by hunger, ill
health, and slow learning for want of safe and adequate energy.
Senator Dodd. Thank you very much, Doctor. That was very
important statistics and very, very helpful. On the
developmental side particularly, I think it sheds a different
light on the issue than the one traditionally brought up when
we talk about these issues. Thank you.
Thank you very much for being here, Ms. Hussain. I should
have introduced--I understand there is a grandchild here as
well, a little one.
Ms. Hussain. Yes.
Senator Dodd. I didn't see behind--I apologize. Do you want
to stand up so we can see you here? What is your name?
Desiree. Desiree.
Senator Dodd. Nice to meet you. Thank you for coming to
Washington.
STATEMENT OF ROBIN HUSSAIN, RESIDENT, HARTFORD, CT
Ms. Hussain. Hello.
Senator Dodd. Hi.
Ms. Hussain. Good morning. My name is Robin Hussain. I am a
single grandmother, raising three grandchildren in Hartford,
CT. I particularly want to thank Senator Dodd, our Senator, who
never forgets how ordinary people in Connecticut are struggling
and need his help.
I am very grateful to Senator Alexander, Senator Kennedy,
Senator Reed, Senator Murkowski, and the members of the
committee for this opportunity to speak on behalf of LIHEAP and
how much it helps stabilize low-income households like mine and
my neighbors.
As I see it, your heating cost is the toughest thing to
manage in your entire household. I am a really good manager. I
find that there are many expenses that you can bring down. You
can shop more carefully. You can clip coupons, switch to
another market. You can get used clothes. You can find a more
affordable apartment, but you don't have a choice when it comes
to heating that apartment. You don't have a choice of a natural
gas vendor or a different one. There are no coupons to clip.
If you rent, you have no control over the efficiency of the
furnace. But heat is not optional. It is not a luxury. You
might turn down the thermostat, but you are still going to need
to heat that apartment.
What do you do if you are looking at a gas bill of more
than $300 a month for heat, hot water, and cooking. That is
what my bill would have been over the last three winters if I
had not been receiving LIHEAP and participating in the matching
payment program with our utilities. At times, our rent took
more than two-thirds of our family's income. How would I have
kept heat in that apartment?
Believe me, I never thought that I would be asking anyone
for help. I got my working papers when I was just 12 years old
so that I could join a group in the city raking leaves and
picking up trash. During high school, I had two jobs. I had a
lot of energy and a lot of ambition.
As an adult, I have been in retail, catering, car rentals.
I am a very good organizer. I was always promoted to the
manager level. I raised three kids in, I would say--what you
would say we could call ourselves, comfortable--not really well
off, but definitely getting along. My favorite job was managing
a Thrifty Car Rental headquarters. I brought home $575 a week
after taxes, had a company car. From where I sit today, that
looked like easy street.
Things really started to change in 2001. To put it bluntly,
I lost my fight to keep my daughters away from the world of
violence and drugs. In spite of everything our family tried to
do, it became clear that I would have to step in for my
grandchildren to give them the kind of life that my daughters
were unable to pull together.
The empty nest, years of career growth, prosperity, turned
into a struggle to parent two children under the age of 3,
trying to keep a job and pay the babysitters. Then I really hit
a wall. Taking the children, taking care of them when they were
sick made me miss work too often to hang onto my job at BJ's.
At this point, I was looking at a grandparent stipend now of
$666 a month and no other income.
My rent was really low, just $450 for a three-bedroom
apartment, cold flat. But food, phone, heat, electricity,
gasoline, and car insurance, you can't squeeze that all out of
the other $216 a month. I wondered what I would do if I would
have to give up our apartment and move in with family or
friends. But a grandmother with two preschool children--how
long could we stay on someone's couch?
You have heard the expression, ``When one door closes,
another opens? '' My brother told me about the Community
Renewal Team, where I could get the kids into Head Start and
help find some help managing my bills. I worked with a
caseworker, and we started on a budget plan right away.
The most important thing was the Energy Assistance Program.
It helped me by paying my heating bills in that drafty old
apartment. This year, LIHEAP is paying $675 toward my heat and
hot water bill. To cover the rest, I am on a payment plan. I
bring $80 a month to the gas company. If I get the payment in
on time, the gas company matches it dollar-for-dollar. In other
words, they forgive $80 for every $80 I pay.
Maybe that doesn't sound like much to some people, but it
is hard to find that $80 some months. My other bills I kind of
alternate. Some months I pay the electricity, but not the
phone. Others, it is the other way around. I try to stick to
paying that gas bill on time because if you are late, you lose
that match for the rest of the winter. It is still hard, but
LIHEAP has helped me take better care of my family.
With the children enrolled in Head Start, I went back to
work. First, I substituted in Head Start classrooms so that my
hours would match the kids'. The money was just enough to push
me over the income limit and for my medical insurance. So that
was canceled.
I found an early shift job at a hotel, where I got full
medical insurance. Neither of these jobs paid great wages, but
I still relied on the Energy Assistance Program. It helped that
I could afford and could count on the Program for one of the
most basic needs, keeping my family warm.
The most recent chapter in my story is sitting behind me
today in the hearing room. This past year, I was asked to take
in one more granddaughter who has been through some really
traumatic experiences. Right now, DCF is not allowing her to be
left with a sitter, not even our relatives, which is why she
came here to Washington with me. Her medical appointments, her
psychiatric appointments, her court dates have all kept me from
working so far this year. LIHEAP has been a life-saver once
again.
In closing, I hope that I have been able to convey how
important LIHEAP is to low-income people. There are a lot of
working-class people, people like me who are trying to work,
trying to raise families to make our ends meet. The LIHEAP
program treats people with dignity. It helps to ease the burden
of staying warm in the winter, whether you are in an apartment
heated with gas or a home heated with oil.
We can all see that the fuel and heat have gone sky high
these last couple of years. Programs like this help prevent
people from freezing or losing their apartments altogether.
Thank you very much for listening.
Senator Dodd. Thank you. We could probably just end the
hearing right now. I think you have kind of said it all.
Eloquent, eloquent testimony.
Ms. Hussain. Thank you very much.
Senator Dodd. I am very proud to represent you. Thanks.
Good luck here following that testimony.
Ms. Surber. Yes, you saved me till last, and she has
already said everything I need to say. That is exactly how our
clients in Tennessee feel as well.
Senator Dodd. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Surber, for
being here. It means a lot to have you here.
STATEMENT OF REGINA SURBER, DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY PROGRAMS,
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, NASHVILLE, TN
Ms. Surber. Our LIHEAP program operates in our State year
round, providing needed assistance with heating and cooling
costs for as long as the funds will allow. Our LIHEAP dollars
are distributed through a network of community action agencies
and other nonprofits and entities of local governments. Our
State uses a priority point system to target our funds to some
of the most needy households in our State, particularly the
elderly, the medically fragile, and households with very young
children.
As we are all painfully aware, energy prices are soaring.
In our State, we have seen many families arriving at our local
agencies requesting assistance who have never had to ask for
any kind of assistance before. These are families who have been
struggling paycheck-to-paycheck to provide for themselves and
now find that this one paycheck simply does not cover all of
the increased costs of the basic necessities of life. Receiving
assistance through the LIHEAP program means that they can use
some of those dollars for food or gas to get to work that they
would normally have had to use to heat or cool their homes.
States have the flexibility to set their benefit levels to
address the local needs in their communities. When the number
of households requesting assistance starts to increase, States
must decide whether to keep their current benefit levels and
serve fewer households or serve more households by reducing the
benefit level for each. That is a hard decision for a State
office.
Increasing the number of households served by decreasing
the benefit level of each on the surface may seem like an
equitable way of sharing available resources. But are we truly
helping a household with a smaller benefit level if they cannot
make up the difference themselves to pay that bill?
With the current increase in the number of households
requesting assistance with their energy costs, our State's
current formula allocation simply does not meet the demand. Any
decrease in the LIHEAP program funding would have a detrimental
effect on the health and well-being of thousands of low-income
households in Tennessee. Likewise, no increase in the program
allocations means that many more households will go without
this basic necessity.
Experience has shown us that we have a need for a year-
round energy assistance program. As a southern State, one might
assume that the dangerously high temperatures during the summer
months are the only time when we need to focus our efforts on
assisting households with their energy bills. However, we, like
our northern counterparts, experience cold temperatures for a
period of time each year. While our winters may not be as long
or be as extremely cold, individuals and families unable to pay
their heating costs often place themselves in great danger as
they attempt to find alternate means, such as candles or wood
fires, to keep themselves warm.
Certainly, we do need the funds to assist households with
cooling their homes in the summer. Last August, Tennessee,
along with several other southern States, experienced some of
the hottest temperatures ever recorded in those States. The
highest loss of life attributed to the heat wave was sadly
within our own State, where we had 15 deaths related to the
extreme high temperatures.
We know that the elderly and the very young and the
medically fragile are most susceptible to the heat. Our own
limited efforts to address this issue through the distribution
of air conditioners to low-income households only met a very
small portion of that need. We rely on the LIHEAP program to
help us serve our low-income households within our State.
The mission of the LIHEAP program is very basic--to provide
heating and cooling assistance to households living in poverty.
These households, as you have heard, are routinely placed in
the difficult position of having to choose to pay for heating
or cooling costs or feed their families. The receipt of the
Federal LIHEAP program funds allows our State to provide
assistance to these families so that, for at least 1 month,
they won't have to make that difficult choice.
With the ever-increasing energy costs, the need for energy
assistance is surely to rise. The gap between available
resources and eligible households in our State continues to
widen. Senior citizens living on fixed incomes and households
with members who are very young or have medical disabilities
are struggling every month to pay their energy bill.
The need for energy assistance is growing so rapidly that
support systems in local communities cannot keep up with the
demand. These households will continue to turn to our
department for assistance, and we will continue to rely on the
LIHEAP program to help make those funds available.
Energy is a basic need for all of us, whether it is for
heating our homes during the winter or cooling them during the
summer. For households that cannot afford their energy costs, a
shutoff of their energy resource is only the first in a
succession of problems resulting from their inability to pay
that bill. These households often go on to experience
additional medical expenses, malnutrition, and even
homelessness.
Tennessee appreciates the fact that, over the years,
Congress has seen the importance of funding the LIHEAP program,
and we ask for your continued investment in this program. We
also ask for your consideration in re-evaluating and
appropriately revising the funding formula to better reflect
the real needs of the so-called warm weather States.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the
opportunity to share with you this morning.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Surber follows:]
Prepared Statement of Regina Surber
Good morning, I am pleased to testify on behalf of the State of
Tennessee on the importance of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program (LIHEAP) to our State. My name is Regina Surber and I am the
Director of Community Services for the Tennessee Department of Human
Services. The LIHEAP program is within my area and it provides an
invaluable means for our Department to meet the heating and cooling
needs of some of Tennessee's most vulnerable citizens.
Energy burdens (percentage of household income used for energy
costs) are on the rise for our low-income households who typically pay
a higher percentage of their income toward the costs of heating and
cooling their homes. In Tennessee, households living at or below 125
percent of the Federal poverty guidelines are eligible for LIHEAP
energy assistance.
Our program operates year-round providing much needed energy
assistance for heating and cooling costs. During the prior fiscal year,
95,089 households applied for assistance through the LIHEAP program and
83,448 households received assistance. The majority of households that
did not receive assistance were not able to be served due to a lack of
funds.
Tennessee's formula funding for LIHEAP averages about $27M
annually. The LIHEAP funds are distributed through a network of
nineteen (19) nonprofit agencies and units of local governments serving
all of our 95 counties. In our State, a priority point system is used
to target services for households with members who are elderly,
disabled, and/or under the age of six. In the prior fiscal year, 45
percent of the households served had members who were elderly, 39
percent with disabilities, and 16 percent with young children.
The LIHEAP guidelines provide for States to have the option to set
aside up to 15 percent of their LIHEAP allocation to support
weatherization activities for low-income households. In Tennessee, we
transfer 10 percent of our LIHEAP allocation to the State's
Weatherization Assistance Program to support weatherization measures
such as insulation and furnace repair.
As we are all painfully aware, energy prices are soaring. In our
State, we have seen many families arriving at our local agencies to
apply for LIHEAP assistance who have never applied for assistance
before. These are families who have been struggling paycheck to
paycheck to provide for themselves and now find that their paychecks no
longer cover the basic necessities of food, shelter, transportation,
child care and medical needs.
Receiving assistance through the LIHEAP program means they can use
some of the dollars for food or fuel to get to their jobs that they
would have normally used to pay the energy costs of heating or cooling
their homes.
States have the flexibility to set their benefit levels to address
the needs in their local communities. When the number of households
requesting assistance increases, States must decide whether to keep
their current benefit levels and serve fewer households, or serve more
households by reducing the benefit level.
This is a hard decision for a State office. Increasing the number
of households by decreasing the benefit level for each, on the surface,
seems an equitable way of sharing available resources. But are we truly
helping a household with an $800 electric bill if we provide them with
a $200 benefit through the LIHEAP program? Will this household be able
to come up with the additional $600 to keep their electricity on and
their house warm or cool? For many of our elderly households, the
answer would be no.
With the current increase in the number of households requesting
assistance with their energy costs, our State's current formula
allocation does not meet the need. Any decrease in LIHEAP program
funding would have a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of
low-income households in Tennessee. Similarly, no increase in the
program allocations means that many more households will go without
this basic necessity.
Experience has shown us that we have a need for the year-round
availability of funds in our State. As a southern State, one may assume
that the dangerously high temperatures in the summer months are the
only time of year when we need to focus our efforts on assisting
households with high energy bills.
However, we, like our northern counterparts, experience cold
temperatures for a period of the year. Average temperatures across
Tennessee during the month of January average 27 degrees. While our
winters may not last as long, or be as extremely cold, as in other
parts of the Nation, individuals and families unable to pay for their
heating costs often place themselves in great danger as they attempt to
find alternate means, such as candles and wood fires, to keep
themselves warm.
Certainly, we do need funds to assist households with cooling their
homes. Last August, Tennessee, along with several other southern
States, experienced some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded. The
highest loss of life attributed to the heat wave was in our State where
we had 15 deaths related to the extreme high temperatures.
We know that the elderly, the very young and the medically fragile
are most susceptible to the heat. Our own limited efforts to address
this issue through the distribution of air conditioners to low-income
individuals met only a small portion of that need. We rely on the
LIHEAP program to help us serve our low-income households during the
summer months.
The mission of the LIHEAP program is to provide heating and cooling
assistance to households living in poverty. These households are
routinely placed in the difficult position of having to choose to pay
for heating/cooling costs or feeding their families. The receipt of the
Federal LIHEAP program funds allows our State to provide assistance to
these families so that, for at least 1 month, they won't have to make
this difficult choice.
With the ever-increasing energy costs the need for energy
assistance is surely to rise. The gap between available resources and
eligible households in our State continues to widen. Senior citizens
living on fixed incomes and households with members who are very young
or have medical disabilities are struggling to pay their energy bills.
The need for energy assistance is growing so rapidly that support
systems in local communities, including nonprofits and faith-based
agencies, cannot meet the demand. These households will continue to
turn to our Department for assistance. We rely on the LIHEAP program to
enable us to meet their needs.
Energy is a basic need for all of us, whether it is for heating our
homes during the winter months or cooling them in the summer months.
For households that cannot afford their energy costs, a shut-off of
their energy resource is only the first in a succession of problems
resulting from their inability to pay their bill. These households
often go on to experience additional medical expenses, malnutrition,
and even homelessness.
Tennessee appreciates the fact that over the years Congress has
seen the importance of funding the LIHEAP program and we ask for your
continued investment in this critically needed program. We also ask for
your consideration in re-evaluating and appropriately revising the
funding formula to better reflect the real needs of the so-called
``warm-weather'' States.
Thank you for the opportunity to come before this subcommittee
today to briefly share with you the importance of this Federal program
to thousands of households in Tennessee.
Senator Dodd. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Surber, as
well. That was very helpful testimony, and I thought it was
particularly worthwhile to have someone--I think it is sort of
obvious in the northern-tier States, but to hear from someone
in a border or a southern State, where you have the
fluctuations that occur as rapidly as they do, is a good
addition to the normal testimony we have from representatives
of States where you either have tremendously high temperatures
all of the time or a good part of the year very low
temperatures.
What I would like to do here is watch the clock here as
well--excuse me. I don't know if Senator Reed is coming back?
There are three of us here. We can kind of do this informally
in a way and engage in a good conversation here.
I wonder if you might, Dr. Power, let me begin with you. We
have heard what Tennessee is doing obviously in the State, but
I'm curious as to whether or not any States are doing anything
unique or different that you are aware of around the country as
a model. Obviously, we are serving a relatively small
percentage of eligible people, but to what extent are there any
good examples out there of how States are managing this issue
in a way that might be instructive to those States who would
like to deliver more services to people, what they could be
doing?
Obviously, we've got our responsibility on this side of the
dais. A lot of times, I find a lot of very good ideas come from
our States. Are there some examples out there that you would
care to share with us at this point?
Ms. Power. There are, and these are--I am reflecting the
preferences of the community action network, which are biased
toward some long-term and major system change solutions because
there really aren't any evaluations of LIHEAP programs, third-
party evaluations.
The leveraging I spoke about is very important, and where
leveraging has been used first to finance advocacy and building
partnerships and working things out with utilities and
commissions, there are safety nets in place that have a series
of discounts and weatherization matching investments from
utilities going from LIHEAP and weatherization network. Is it
enough? No. Is it a great deal more than LIHEAP and
weatherization alone? Absolutely.
The partnerships with the utilities are essential
communications tools as well for finding out where there are
going to be people in need, people at great risk, people shut
off. The majority of States have some kind of leveraging
arrangement, and a minority of States in the warm climate areas
where LIHEAP is insufficient to be much of an attractive
match--the exception is Texas, which has done a great deal in
the course of its regulating its deregulation with discounts
and weatherization. That is a generalized pattern, and LIHEAP
is a terrific matching fund and attracts money.
The second one is a more daring set of experiments in four
States, statewide, and in individual utility areas in other
States, that essentially holds the percentage of income that a
household must pay to what the State considers a reasonable
level, and that varies tremendously. That is almost like a baby
Brook Amendment for public housing in that State.
Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire's electric system and
Ohio, for all its fuels, are trying to keep the lowest income
LIHEAP population at no more than X. It is 6 percent in a
couple of those States and as high as 15 percent in Ohio. The
rest is essentially subsidized by LIHEAP and the rate payers
and other funding sources, if they can find them, in the States
as they are adjusting those programs.
There is a rough justice to that. Indeed if, in fact, you
could do this for everybody so that working households who are
just over that eligibility line, when they get into trouble or
when something happens, can also get that kind of protection,
it is not even rough justice. It becomes a policy that could
have tremendous support. It is not going to be possible for
very small States. It involves a great deal of input from other
rate payers in order to make this work, but it is a mix of
State and Federal resources that could be the path.
To the extent the Federal resources can balance, rural
areas can't do this well with rural electric coops, power
authorities. Federal power authorities are very involved in
investing in the northwestern States with the low-income
population assistance and not in any other areas, and
particularly not the Tennessee Valley Authority, unfortunately,
yet.
There are good program models in which LIHEAP is not just
used for emergency. In most States, you can't get more LIHEAP
by not paying your bill than you could have gotten if you made
your payments on time, and that works with the incentives that
community action agencies like to provide to low-income, low-
wage workers to build assets, to build their credit, and to
work toward long-term stability.
There are a lot of models in there. We don't have any
funding or leadership at the Department of Health and Human
Services to share models, to communicate, train, and help the
States with this kind of thing, and that would be very helpful
in your oversight to put some responsibilities on the Federal
administration of this block grant to help get the word out.
Senator Dodd. Yes, that is a very good suggestion, and you
want to be careful on resource allocation because the money is
tight, but certainly requiring that.
Can you just give us an idea, what you just explained here,
could you just if you have it in your mind, what does that
mean? I mean, if we are talking about 16 percent of the
eligible population nationally qualifying for LIHEAP, what do
those numbers look like in some of the States that you have
mentioned where the models are pretty good? Do they expand
dramatically the numbers of people who are qualifying for
LIHEAP or getting LIHEAP or getting energy assistance?
Ms. Power. Not that I know of, but I would like to be able
to check that with those four States particularly for the
record. What it does is stabilize those people who are involved
and who are engaged in the program.
Senator Dodd. It sustains the program through a length of
period of time.
Ms. Power. It sustains the program. It sustains those
households. Ms. Hussain was very eloquent in describing one of
those kinds of incentive programs. It is not a PIP, but
arrearage forgiveness is the most important thing because all
of these statistics that we have given you, as wonderful as
these forecasts may be, don't include old debt. The Department
of Energy doesn't collect that. We use their numbers. People
owe a whole lot more than this year's bill, and we gave you
this year's bill numbers in our testimony and on our models.
The mountain of debt that is piling up on working
households, even as they try and pay it off, is horrifying.
There was a study by the credit card national association early
in the year that found that 25 percent of households planned to
pay for their energy on part or all on credit cards this
winter.
Senator Dodd. Well, do you know the median income in the
United States, I think it is around $43,000, median income. The
average revolving debt in this country is $9,000--excess of
$9,300, and most of that revolving debt, well over 95 percent
of it is credit card debt and growing. And so, you are getting
as a percentage of people's income, a staggering amount of
consumer debt.
By the way, savings are at a negative rate as well. You get
the combination of people unable to save--by the way, it is
unable, not unwilling. Unable to save. The amount of consumer
debt that is mounting, and of course, this is now with the
housing foreclosure issue because a lot of people are taking
out those second mortgages to do exactly that--to pay for home
heating oil, to pay for credit card debt.
Of course, they now have obligations in excess of the value
of their homes, as we have watched them now decline value by 10
percent, maybe 15 percent by next year. Putting people really
under water here, and the problems just grow exponentially
almost on a daily basis in this area.
I would be interested if you could, Doctor, these are some
very important numbers. I think we would all like to know what
is working and what could work better? To the extent that the
organization could help us pull some of that data together, and
I think a very worthwhile suggestion we would want to
communicate to the department here as a way of examining these
questions and making this work better and highlighting and
communicating some of those ideas could be very worthwhile.
Ms. Power. I would be happy to, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Would you do that?
Ms. Power. Yes.
Senator Dodd. Dr. Frank, in a sort of related question
here, and I appreciate immensely your analysis of this in the
context of what happens in terms of developmental issues in the
0 to 3 category and so we think beyond, and again, I think for
most of us here in the room, you said it. I found myself going,
``Yes, I knew that.'' The fact you just said it sort of brings
it home that children are going to die of freezing before they
die of hunger at that age.
I hear it. I guess we all know that, but it sort of
startles us to hear it. Their health conditions and brain
development issues are critically important. I wonder if you
have any thoughts on--you work with children on a daily basis,
how do we do a better job of making these programs more
accessible, making people more aware of them?
Obviously, there are limitations on what resources exist. I
suspect from what you said here a lot of it is that people just
don't even apply for this.
Ms. Frank. Or when they do apply, they are told to come
back another day because the lines are too long.
Senator Dodd. Yes.
Ms. Frank. The paperwork and so on. It is the line--I mean,
you have to take a day from work and maybe drag along a sick
baby and then queue outside what we call the ABCDs. And then
told, after X number of people go in the door, ``go away''
because ``I am sorry, we can't deal with anybody else today.''
That is a huge counterincentive. I mean, I don't think it
is a lack of education, at least not the people--we very
quickly tell people in our hospital. ``Go. Go apply. Go to the
ABCD.'' The ABCDs are out by--they don't open until November 1,
and they are out by January.
Senator Dodd. Yes.
Ms. Frank. If you go, it may be just too difficult to get
through that day, and then by the time you can get back, they
are out. It is very complicated. It is a good medicine, and it
is hard to get it. When you get it, the dose is low. Although
what stunned me was that the dose made a difference. This was,
again, old data when LIHEAP at least paid for like a whole tank
of oil.
Senator Dodd. Yes. Well, I am going to be asking--Ms.
Surber, you as well, and others, you have got to share with us
some ideas on how we can do this more efficiently. I mean, it
is very, very helpful to us, all of us here, even those who may
be opposed to the program. I think to the extent we can get the
funding for it, we would all like to see it work better and
become more efficient in its application.
Ms. Frank. Dr. Power told me a brilliant idea when we were
talking before, which is why not qualify people for 2 years at
a time, since they are not suddenly going to become much richer
and ineligible. I thought, boy, that would save a whole lot of
time.
Ms. Power. That would mean that you approve a 2-year plan,
and the legislation allows the State to submit and then have
approved a 2-year plan. It is pretty simple.
Senator Dodd. Yes, well, that is a good suggestion, a good
idea. Any other ones like that that you have would be very
worthwhile.
I wonder, Doctor, if there are any longitudinal studies
that you have seen that deal with the achievement gap on this?
Ms. Frank. It is very interesting that the surveys that ask
about energy insecurity and the surveys that ask about child
outcome are disconnected, and none of the longitudinal studies
ask about either energy or housing security and long-term child
outcome. They do ask about food security, but not energy.
Senator Dodd. Yes.
Ms. Frank. That is a real gap in our scientific knowledge.
You can tell just in general that kids who are scoring in the
delayed range at age 2 are just at exponentially more risk for
flunking first grade. I mean, whatever got them to that point,
they are going to do worse later.
Senator Dodd. Well, it is always one of the issues I find
myself confronted with here over the years, and I know Senator
Murkowski has probably encountered the same thing. We will go
to our colleagues on one of these issues--and there are a
series of them--and oftentimes, I find that people think we are
talking about separate families. If I go and say, ``Look, I am
interested in the WIC program, and I am interested in LIHEAP,
and I am interested in Head Start.''
They will say, ``Look, I will tell you what. I will help
you on the Head Start, and I will help you on the WIC, but I
can't help you on the LIHEAP.'' I say it is the same family.
Ms. Frank. Exactly.
Senator Dodd. There is not a LIHEAP family and a WIC family
and a Head Start family.
Ms. Frank. Yes.
Senator Dodd. And so, you are helping me on one side of
them. You are taking money out of the other. Again, I realize
we can't do everything, but we need to understand this thing. I
presume what we are talking about here, we are not separating
out. We are talking about a family that is suffering. If there
is an achievement gap associated with the heating question or
cooling issue, I presume that same family has also got a food
problem here, and a variety of other things. You are dealing
with----
Ms. Frank. In our data for babies, actually, more families
are energy insecure than are food insecure--which has also
surprised us. They are still unacceptably high. I mean, if you
can count off five babies and say one of those is hungry, and
you count off three and one of those is energy insecure, that
is appalling in this country.
Senator Dodd. Yes. Well, should we--how do you do this? Who
is doing these studies that should be picking up on this?
Ms. Frank. Well, N. Haynes, Early Childhood Longitudinal
Survey. They are just not asking them--again, there is the
SIPP, but they don't ask about what happens. They don't measure
the children, and those that measure the children don't ask
about energy and housing. As far as I know, we are the only
people who link those two levels of data.
Senator Dodd. Yes, well, we can make that request. That is
something we can get together up here and do a letter or
something and make a request that they look at this----
Ms. Frank. That would be good.
Senator Dodd [continuing]. In a more comprehensive way. And
last on this, on older children and adults--I know your
specialty is 0 to 3. Are there any studies at all that indicate
how this is playing out among older----
Ms. Frank. Well, I can tell you clinically that kids with
asthma, kids with sickle cell disease, cold triggers their
illness, and so they end up in the emergency room. So does
overheating and dehydration. They end up in the emergency room
at $1,000 a whack because they got so cold that they either
started to wheeze or they got into a painful crisis. I don't
think anybody has studied it as systematically as we have for
babies, but I can tell you clinically that everybody--that the
house staff will say, ``It is cold tonight. We are going to be
awfully busy.'' And they are right.
Senator Dodd. Well, again, that seems sort of self-evident.
Ms. Frank. Yes.
Senator Dodd. It is important to hear that testimony. Let
me begin with you, Robin, thank you again for being here. Very
eloquent. Congratulations on being a great grandmother, too.
It is a tough thing to appear before a congressional
committee and talk about your life story, but you have done it
with great dignity, and your story--I know we are all special,
and individual stories are unique. I think you are probably
well aware there are an awful lot of people who are in very
similar situations, who work very hard and do their very best,
and I have got a lot of confidence you are going to do fine.
Those grandchildren are very, very lucky, indeed, to have you
as a grandmother.
Ms. Hussain. Thank you very much.
Senator Dodd. I appreciate what you are doing. I guess I
wanted to sort of ask you here as you have answered it, but
maybe you just want to expound on it a little bit about how
when you were forced to go without, I guess, having limited
access to heating assistance, how did it affect your health? I
mean, we obviously know how it can affect the children. We have
talked about that. How did it affect you?
Ms. Hussain. There were a lot more colds. When we couldn't
afford to actually turn the heat up or I was actually getting
really worried because the heating bill was so high, and that
was kind of before I knew about LIHEAP and started to get my
help, we doubled up on clothing. We wore thermals with a pair
of jeans on top or with a pair of sweat pants on top. Double,
triple blankets on the bed at night.
We did get colds. I have asthma. I have bronchitis. So it
triggers it, like she said. David has severe asthma. Desiree
has asthma. Alena is the only one that didn't, knock on wood.
We get more visits to the doctor's. We get more visits to the
hospitals, to the emergency rooms. If their treatments get too
severe, then I have to bring them in, and they have to get the
actual physical asthma treatment.
Very difficult. Winter season is very difficult. Colds, not
always enough money to run to the corner store, but they
weren't really sick enough quite just yet to bring them in to
try to get the prescriptions for cough syrups and stuff like
that, aspirins, fevers. Cold takes a toll.
Senator Dodd. Were you using any of these alternative
energy sources? The space heaters?
Ms. Hussain. I had an electric heater, but I got really
paranoid and scared because the kids at that time were a little
bit younger. I was scared that they were going to go next to
it, they were going to touch it, they were going to burn their
hands.
What I would do is like I would kind of sit up, and when I
had it on, I would put it on for a certain amount of time to
try to warm up the room. And then when I found myself just
getting tired, I would turn it off. Then I would go to sleep
and wake up in the morning, and I would get up first and turn
it back on. We would get it nice and toasty in there, and then
I would turn it off and put it up a little bit higher so that
they couldn't touch it.
I never did the kerosene thing because I was just totally
too scared of that. Yes, there were alternatives. Electric
blankets. Then on that note of putting the electric heaters and
the electric blankets on, then my electric bill went sky high.
It was rob Peter, pay Paul that month, and back and forth.
Senator Dodd. What are you doing now? I am sorry. What is
your job now? Do you have a job?
Ms. Hussain. My job now is taking care of them. Desiree, I
just got in January. She came to the household in January. I am
back and forth with her doctors. She sees a psychiatrist once a
week. She has what is called medi-complex. She has ADHD. She
has severe asthma. We go back and forth to that. We go to court
appointments from DCF, and we go to doctor's appointments.
The other two children are in school. They are in first
grade. There is not much you can do with a 6-hour day. I do as
much as I can.
Senator Dodd. You are doing pretty well. Doing pretty well.
Ms. Surber here, I just want to--tell me about just
quickly, and make this fast, your efforts on making people
aware in Tennessee of the program. What works?
Ms. Surber. We do it in two ways. We require our contract
agencies, our community action agencies, to develop outreach
activities and to share those with us. Then through our
department, we do quarterly news releases to remind people that
this program is out there. Unfortunately, as some have already
indicated, we are kind of only increasing the people who show
up for assistance when our money has long since run out, and
that discourages them from perhaps coming back the next year
and applying for it.
Senator Dodd. How about the bureaucracy issue that was
raised here by Dr. Power and Dr. Frank--just these people
showing up, long lines? How do we make it more efficient? How
do we make it work better? Any thoughts on this, as someone who
has to deal with it every day?
Ms. Surber. We are still working on that.
Senator Dodd. How about this idea of a 2-year deal? What is
that--how does that strike you?
Ms. Surber. As long as we work out the funding issue that
my budget people would be comfortable with, that would help
because we are seeing a lot of the same families every year.
Like they say, they are on fixed incomes, and their incomes are
not going to increase enough to put them out of eligibility for
the program.
Senator Dodd. Any other thoughts on making this, making
people more aware that you would recommend to us here?
Ms. Surber. Not at this time, but we are certainly working
on that ourselves. We will share with you any ideas that we
have.
Senator Dodd. Thanks very, very much. I have taken a long
time. I apologize.
Lisa.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you.
Ms. Hussain, I want to echo the comments from Senator Dodd.
Your testimony here this morning was beautifully stated, and
you speak to the reality of a world where you can manage, well,
lots of other things. It sounds like you clearly have made
great efforts to do just that, but you have no control over
what is happening with your energy bills. It is something that
is a basic need, and it is not as if you can shop better, as
you say, or manage wiser.
Senator Dodd, as you have mentioned, in a world where
people are adding onto their credit card debt to just kind of
make it through the day-to-day and recognizing that we are
seeing folks basically borrowing and putting it on the credit
card to basically keep the heat on, this is a very serious,
very real situation.
I, too, appreciate your story here this morning. I think it
speaks to the very precarious nature that so many of our
families face, whether it is in the colder States or in the
warmer States. It is something that as well as you might be
able to plan, there are some things you simply cannot get on
top of.
It sounds like you got lucky in going to a counselor that
set you up to allow you to take advantage of the benefits that
were available through the energy subsidy. It is a situation
again, I think, of making sure that individuals and families
know that these opportunities are available.
I think we all recognize that the funding is the critical
piece. If you don't have sufficient funding going to the
program, you can't do what you need to do in Tennessee to meet
all the needs, nor can you do it in Connecticut. I want to kind
of go past the funding aspect of it and just acknowledge that
we can do more, if we have more in the program.
Ms. Surber, you spoke a little bit to the formula aspect
and, Dr. Power, in your written testimony, you indicate that
you think the formula creates a major barrier to added funding
because the coldest States reap so little additional reward
from new appropriations. And you go on to suggest that the
Secretary of HHS or CRS work to develop different options for
the formula. Can either one of you speak to what you think
might work?
Again, Senator Dodd is looking for good ideas. Is there
something with the formula that, in your opinion, we can do
that will enhance what we are able to do with LIHEAP?
Ms. Surber. Just in thinking about looking at revising it,
just updating the data, recognizing that each State has the
different number of heating and cooling days, and taking a look
at that, obviously. As I said, our winters aren't as cold as
Connecticut's, but we turn around and have some extreme
temperatures in the summer. Just taking all of that information
into account, I think, would help.
Senator Murkowski. Dr. Power.
Ms. Power. I have been here through a couple of these, and
it is not entirely clear whether either data or sweet reason
determines the outcome. The current formula was negotiated
between northeastern members of this committee and members from
California and Louisiana, and it had a very different impact at
the time it was put in place, which I think is 1986 because the
population hadn't moved so far south.
The second- and third-tier formulas, the third-tier
formula, which really determines how additional money goes out,
is heavily weighted to population and energy consumption. The
result now, because of the population shift, is that so little
money would go to Alaska. For $1 billion, for a 50-percent
increase, say, in the program, I think Alaska would get a 1
percent, less than 2 percent, anyway, increase.
Small, cold States that desperately need more LIHEAP
funding are the ones like North Dakota and even Minnesota is
not so small, Vermont, would also get a rather negligible share
out of a very big increase. You will have worked out the
expedient of some of it through the President's discretion and
some of it through the formula.
Factors that take into account energy burden and take into
account extreme weather could be balanced so that each State
got a reasonable share of an increase. The question of what is
reasonable we will leave in the hands of Congress and higher
powers than ourselves. It is clear that the current is not
reasonable. Looking at warm State funding, the gap to the need,
the gap to the actual energy burden of households in most of
the southern areas, there is not much difference between the
burden of those eligible households or those households in
poverty and the equivalent households in the Midwest.
New England and Alaska are the exceptions----
Senator Murkowski. Let me ask you then on that. If we were
successful in increasing the amount of funding to LIHEAP, and
let us just say we are wildly successful in increasing the
amount of funding. I want to be optimistic today. What you are
saying is that if we don't address how it is disbursed through
the formula, you will still have inequities in certain parts of
the country. Is that correct?
Ms. Surber. Well, warm States wouldn't think so. If you
were wildly successful and the money went out through the
formula at $5 billion--I need to check my little computer
runs--but Alaska would have a small increase, and Texas would
have a, I think, 500 percent increase and Florida. I don't
think they would think that that was not a success.
I think proportionately that is a problem for New England
and Alaska and the northern-tier States. There would still be a
lot more money in the system.
Senator Murkowski. Is anybody collecting the data that you
have referred to, Ms. Surber? Do we know that?
Ms. Power. The heating degree day data are the Weather
Service.
Ms. Surber. Then NOAA has that.
Ms. Power. The current population data certainly the
census. It would be a good idea to be a little more foresighted
than we were 20 years ago in thinking how populations are going
to move and how quickly things might change and whether a
stable system can be put in place.
Senator Murkowski. For purposes of the funding formula for
LIHEAP, you don't have an analysis in terms of what is coming
in with the data? Yes, we can get the weather data, and we can
get the census data. That is nice. But in terms of how you can
provide for equities within the system in terms of available
funds, we are not collecting the data in that manner?
Ms. Power. It is a matter of weighting those factors--
population, weather, and cost of energy. Those are judgment
calls, but the reason we recommended HHS, CRS, some relatively
impartial and respected organization in the Government is they
could play with different weights and show the alternatives and
how they come out?
Senator Murkowski. Well, just in the weighting--and I will
direct this to you, Dr. Frank. So you have got a population,
let us take Alaska, where you have a higher percent of
individuals below the poverty line. You theoretically have more
children at risk. You have got factors that compound that with
nutrition--should that be something that is factored in, aside
from just weather and population? Because if we are talking
about putting at risk developmentally a greater portion of that
population on a per capita basis, isn't that something that we
should be looking at?
Ms. Frank. Well, I guess through my lens, as a
developmental pediatrician, I absolutely agree that you have to
think of this as a, as I said a child health program, a child
development program. You don't want to make anybody worse
because everyone is bad enough already.
I guess that is a silly thing to say in this kind of
setting. I think you do need to look at populations at risk not
just because of temperature and cost, but because of other risk
factors because it all forms a kind of net that tangles up
children--housing, food, energy. So, yes, I agree.
I mean, except I am probably outside of my field.
Senator Murkowski. I will ask you one quick question and
then defer to my colleague, Senator Reed. You have mentioned
that children that are exposed to the cold at the very early
years are at developmental risk. Is that also true if they are
subjected to heat exposure? I don't have a lot of familiarity
with heat.
Ms. Frank. Well, if you have full-blown heat stroke,
absolutely.
Senator Murkowski. That will cause developmental delays?
Ms. Frank. It could cause really serious brain damage. In
terms, I think, remember that learning is a discretionary
activity for little kids. They only learn when they are warm
and happy and clean and comfortable, and then they go out and
unpack your kitchen cupboard or whatever it is that they do to
learn.
If you are so hot that you are miserable or you are so cold
that you are miserable, even if you are not about to die of it,
you are not learning. And the same if you are hungry. If you
are hungry, what you do is you kind of shut down. So you are
not--you are what is called--you functionally isolate yourself
from learning opportunities. In a little child, that is
disastrous.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Those are great questions, and they are very
poignant questions. That is, we have got to take a look at
these formulas again, obviously, here with the changes that
have occurred in the last 20 years. If Jack is successful with
this amendment we all offered here, the irony would be that we
are successful in getting some additional funds and then find
out they are marginal increases for very affected populations.
We ought to talk about that and how we approach this.
Senator Reed.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Senator Murkowski.
I want to just publicly announce I am going to shamelessly
expropriate all of your testimony with attribution when we
argue for increased funding because it has been excellent.
Thank you very much. It has hit so many different facets of
this important issue.
I think just a comment. I think our success in getting more
funds is probably inversely related to talking about formula
changes. That is--but we will do that. First, let us get the
money because I think we will all agree with additional
resources, we can fulfill at least our obligations to all the
States.
It raises an issue, too, with--Ms. Surber, I think the
perspective of the State officials is that they can't see any
more cuts, that they at least have to have the same amount of
money going forward. If we talk about any changes, we would
have to at least provide the same amount of funding that the
States are getting now. Is that a fair point?
Ms. Surber. Most certainly.
Senator Reed. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Power, I was very struck by
your chart four that talked about the energy burdens, and it
seems to be located principally in the Northeast and Midwest,
and that, of course, sort of triggered discussion of the
formulas. What are the factors that go into that energy burden,
and how are they recognized in the formulas?
Ms. Power. The factors in the energy burden are really
simple--expenditures divided by income, and they are
projections based on a reasonable model. And the formula, the
underlying formula is now grandfathered and had a lot to do
with prices. In the second- and third-tier formulas, the
population is the 125 percent of poverty and poverty
populations and their projected energy prices kind of
expenditures.
The important thing about the program is that the benefits
are supposed to vary, and generally do, with expenditures and
burden--with expenditures and income, I mean. That burden
determines your benefit, which is very helpful targeting. It
takes a little bit more administrative cost to get it right,
but it means money goes to the right people.
Those pieces don't all come together in one formula in the
program. I'm not answering fully your question with a full-
blown proposal. I am sorry.
Senator Reed. No, but I mean, you have raised critical
issues of every program we run, which is not just the top line,
but is it targeted and what is the measure that we are
applying? The measure would be essentially--and correct me if I
am wrong. I very well might be. It is really sort of the out-
of-pocket cost to people to fill up their tank either with gas
or with heating oil or with electricity. Is that fair?
Ms. Power. Not so much the cost as in proportion to income,
yes. As you pointed out, that chart shows that propane and fuel
oil this year and last year, if I had last year's chart, are
where the crisis in terms of the highest energy burden, and
often they are. In 2006, when LIHEAP suddenly went to $3
billion because of your leadership, that was a natural gas
crisis. Because 60 percent of households use natural gas, 50
percent of the poor heat with it, that was widespread and every
region recognized it, that that graph would have looked a
little different at that time.
The graph that shows regional burdens shows that none of
your States--but the Midwest burdens, which we know are high,
are just pretty much the same as southern burdens, as the whole
southern tier for some reason, until you get to the Southwest.
It may be that DOE hasn't caught up with rising energy costs in
the Southwest. You never know. It is a little bit off, not
quite the national average.
The Midwest and the South aren't that different in terms of
the relationship between energy expenditures and income. The
reason is incomes are much lower in the South, less
expenditure, less income to bear it.
Senator Reed. Right.
Ms. Power. That is the sense of injustice is real, and it
is based on energy burden.
Senator Reed. One of the complicating factors here, too, is
there are other complementary programs. I think it was
discussed by Ms. Hussain, who the gas company provides
incentives to provide support, etc. To get sort of a definitive
kind of measure of how a family is doing, it would have to
somehow at least appreciate that, maybe not factor in a
formula. That varies, I am sure, State by State, county by
county, city by city.
Ms. Power. It would be terrific to provide an incentive for
more.
Senator Reed. Oh, I think so. An incentive for the private
and public utilities to be much more helpful.
Let me ask Ms. Hussain, you pointed out you found this out
from your brother sort of coincidentally, which suggests to me
we have to do a lot more outreach. Is that your impression?
Ms. Hussain. Definitely. Had I not heard from my brother, I
probably would have continued to not know about LIHEAP and its
programs and never gone into CRT and never found out that they
have so many other programs that they offer. Getting the
information to people, I think, can save people's lives and
their health.
I had a few suggestions that I had thought of. Possibly
every one of us gets a utility bill in the mail. We all open an
envelope. How about putting it on the back of the envelope or
perhaps in an insert? How about having more information with
the 211 info line with our grandparents' navigator system, with
the elderly meetings and stuff that we go to, and we help them
with their services and their bingos and help those providers
come out with some information that could possibly be passed on
during some of their activities.
I have a lot of----
Senator Reed. Those are all excellent ideas.
Ms. Hussain. The kind of ideas that just might get more of
the information out there, billboards, public service messages,
sides of buses. Heck, we walk by corner stores. Even posters
for corner stores. You know, you are having difficulty paying
your heating bill this winter? Don't freeze. Have a number
there.
Just different ideas if I had known.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you.
Ms. Surber--all excellent advice--but I am always sort of
troubled by the dilemma that you are in, which is you don't
have enough money for all the people who come in. Additional
outreach might be raising false expectation. Is that part of
it, do you think, in terms of why there is not more aggressive
outreach?
Ms. Surber. I think it has been. I think a year ago, we sat
down with all of our community action agencies and talked about
this very issue because I was getting calls that when I would
say, ``Well, go sign up for LIHEAP,'' these callers would say
they had never heard of it.
We talked about doing that, and that was one of the
agency's fears, having then a groundswell of people coming in
and having to raise those false hopes and saying, ``Well, we
will take your application just in case some more money becomes
available later.'' It is very discouraging to those people who
came in thinking this is going to be my life-saver today, and
it didn't turn out that way.
Senator Reed. Well, I think if we are fortunate in raising
the top line, that might be an appropriate way to sort of help
ask for more outreach, but I appreciate the dilemma that you
front-line service folks are faced with.
Dr. Frank, finally, your research has been very impressive.
Have you quantified--because this is so often an effective way
to get the point across--quantified the loss? LIHEAP funding
goes down, we incur X additional cost with respect to children
over their lifetime? Is there any discussion----
Dr. Frank. I think the only thing we could do quickly--
although my colleague, Dr. Cook, who is here today, is an
economist, and he could do the more complicated analysis. You
could say, ``OK'', if not having LIHEAP increases 30 percent
the risk that a little kid is going to have to come into an
emergency room--you could quite much say to the hospital to be
admitted--you can calculate how much that is going to cost the
healthcare system.
In general, it costs the public healthcare system in these
cases because these are kids who are all income-eligible for
some sort of public healthcare. They are not privately insured.
It would not be hard to say, even assuming that it is only 15
percent, you could save a huge number of healthcare dollars if
you adequately funded LIHEAP.
I just wanted to add to what Ms. Hussain said. There has
also been a movement to have single applications for food
stamps and health insurance, and if you could simplify it so
that there is one application. Also to outplace people to
places not only as you mentioned, but to hospitals. Just the
way you say go down the hall to the pharmacy, you say go down
the hall to the benefits office. That would be a way of
reaching clearly the highest need, sickest population.
I would point out in our study, LIHEAP was targeted to
families with low-birth weight babies.
Senator Reed. Well, thank you, Dr. Frank. Thank you all.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Dodd. Thank you, Senator Reed, very, very much. I
think the important point we talked about is the formulas, but
obviously the most important thing is getting additional
dollars to get to all States as well. That would be our first
order of business here.
Lisa, do you have any other questions you want to ask?
Senator Murkowski. No, thank you.
Senator Dodd. Well, this has been very, very helpful.
Excellent, excellent testimony and it will help us to make our
case in the coming weeks here for additional support for the
program. You have made a very strong case. Each one of you have
made a very significant, worthwhile contribution to this. I
appreciate that.
I will keep the hearing record open. Some of our colleagues
who were not here this morning may have some additional
questions for you. We will leave that open for a few days here
so they can be submitted. We ask you to respond as soon as you
might have the chance to do so, so we can complete the record.
I thank all of you very much, I thank my colleagues.
The committee will stand adjourned.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Prepared Statement of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America
(PMAA), the New England Fuel Institute (NEFI) and the Independent
Connecticut Petroleum Association (ICPA)
Chairman Dodd and members of this subcommittee, thank you for
allowing the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA), the New
England Fuel Institute (NEFI) and the Independent Connecticut Petroleum
Association (ICPA) to submit testimony today. PMAA is a national
federation of 46 States and regional trade associations representing
some 8,000 independent fuel marketers that collectively account for
approximately half of the gasoline and almost all of the distillate
fuel consumed nationwide. PMAA marketers deliver the majority of the
vital heating fuels that keep American families warm and businesses
running. NEFI is a nationally recognized organization of nearly 1,100
independent oil heat, propane, biofuel and motor vehicle fuel dealers
and associated companies.
The ICPA represents 542 members and their more than 13,000
Connecticut-based employees who sell at retail over 700 million gallons
of heating oil and 1.6 billion gallons of motor fuels to Connecticut's
citizens. ICPA's member heating oil retailers provide services to the
State's 26,000 LIHEAP customers with oil heat and work closely with the
Connecticut Association for Community Action [CAFCA], who represents
the community action agencies in Connecticut as well as Operation Fuel,
the provider of fuel bank fuel assistance in Connecticut.
Heating fuel marketers have an intimate and unique relationship
with their customers and communities that utilities do not share.
Furthermore, most fuel dealers are small, second and third generation
family owned businesses providing not only heating fuel, but also
technical service, vital energy efficiency consultation, and related
heating and weatherization equipment to their customers.
INCREASING ENERGY COSTS
Rising energy prices have made the cost of home heating an
increasingly heavy burden to bear. Our Nation's low-income families and
the elderly are hit the hardest; sometimes faced with the choice
between paying their heating bills and providing other essentials such
as food, medicine and warm clothing. Because of their close
relationship with their customers and communities, our member dealers
and service companies see this need first hand, and for this reason we
continue to be steadfast supporters of the Federal Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); a program that has been critical in
helping those citizens who need it the most.
INADEQUATE LIHEAP FUNDING
PMAA, NEFI and ICPA support a fully funded LIHEAP program
authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 at $5.1 billion.
Unfortunately, the president's budget for fiscal year 2009 reduces the
LIHEAP budget by 22 percent from $2.57 billion to $2.0 billion,
reducing the block grant from $1.98 billion to $1.7 billion and the
emergency contingency fund from $590.3 million to $300 million. Due to
insufficient LIHEAP funding, the Federal Government asks States to find
ways to provide heating assistance to low-income families.
LEVERAGING PROGRAMS/MARGIN-OVER-RACK PROGRAM (MOR)
As part of the 1990 LIHEAP reauthorization bill, Congress included
language encouraging States to ``leverage'' better prices for customers
participating in LIHEAP. States that are able to leverage better energy
prices for those enrolled in their energy assistance programs in turn
qualify for more Federal LIHEAP dollars. In a growing number of
Northeast States, leveraging programs targeting the heating oil--and
propane--industry have surfaced due to insufficient LIHEAP funding.
These programs vary, but most are discount of margin-over-rack (MOR) or
discount-off-retail (DOR).
The margin-over-rack (MOR) program encourages companies to take a
hit on their already marginalized bottom lines above their ``rack'' or
wholesale fuel price. The contract is given to the company with the
lowest profit margin, and interferes with dealer-customer
relationships, many of whom are decades old. The (MOR) program pays
fuel dealers the lesser of either a set margin per gallon or their
regular retail price on the date of delivery. For example, in
Massachusetts (1991-2000), the margin was 25 cents per gallon; in 2000
the State raised it to 28.5 cents per gallon. Vendors had requested the
higher margin due to their increased operating costs. The MOR concept
is based on the fact that oil vendors base their per gallon retail
price on a margin added to their terminal or ``rack'' price. Each
vendor's margin is different due to variances in operating costs
associated with delivery of the product, local competition, and other
factors.
SMALL BUSINESS HEATING FUEL DEALERS ARE HURT BY MARGIN-OVER-RACK
Margin-over-rack and discount-at-retail puts at risk the ability of
small business deliverable fuel dealers to remain competitive and
profitable, particularly as they compete against rate-payer subsidized
electric and natural gas monopolies. It also puts them at odds with the
fuel assistance programs they have supported for decades. These
programs, on their face, force fuel dealers to create a separate and
distinct class of customers, who, due to government mandate, are
treated differently from all other customers.
This differentiation forces dealers to absorb additional
administrative costs--necessary only due to the MOR and DOR mandates--
to handle these customers.
LIHEAP has never paid the entire fuel bill for the recipient. On
average, it pays all but 50 percent of the household fuel cost. Given
this shortcoming, mandated MOR and DOR will in many cases force the
customer to either:
Switch the entire account to a new fuel provider, thereby
interfering with a dealer-customer relationship that is often decades
old or,
Force the customer household to deal with TWO DIFFERENT
FUEL COMPANIES IN THE SAME HOUSEHOLD. Such an arrangement can and will
lead to mistaken deliveries, overfilling of tanks (and spills) because
Company A has no way of knowing if Company B has delivered, or disputes
over what money is paying for what fuel.
REGULATED UTILITIES CAN WITHSTAND MARGIN-OVER-RACK PROGRAMS
Utility energy providers such as natural gas and electric companies
are able to build the costs of these leveraging activities into their
rate bases; by applying a minimal rate increase across their entire
customer base they are able to pass the costs along. Utilities, which
are large businesses that operate with little or no competition, can
afford to--and do--pass on this expense to non-LIHEAP customers.
Deliverable fuel dealers and marketers are not utility vendors, and as
such, cannot pass these costs along to the rest of their customers.
Doing so would jeopardize their ability to remain competitive and harm
families that also struggle with heating costs but are ineligible for
LIHEAP assistance. In States with aggressive leveraging programs, many
deliverable fuel dealers have had to withdraw from State energy
assistance programs; to the detriment of their predominately low-income
customers. For example in Connecticut, where dealers are paid 31 cents
over the New Haven average rack on the date of delivery, more than 200
(of 350) dealers have withdrawn from the State program in the last 2
years, and in parts of the State Community Action Program (CAP)
agencies have had difficulty finding dealers and have had to look to
Massachusetts dealers to deliver fuel. LIHEAP is the only Federal low-
income assistance program to offer financial incentives to States that
require discounted prices for low-income residents. There is no
leveraging program for food stamps, for example, where States are
encouraged to require grocery stores to discount items for sale to low-
income customers.
SOLUTIONS TO MARGIN-OVER-RACK PROGRAMS
PMAA, NEFI and ICPA believe the Federal leveraging statute must be
corrected to welcome dealers back into LIHEAP rather than turning them
away. We recommend that one of the following corrections be made to the
leveraging statute:
Remove the leveraging requirement completely;
Discourage Margin-over-Rack (MOR) programs, which are
causing a decline in fuel dealer participation in LIHEAP and hurting
low-income Americans;
Introduce and encouraging simple Discount-off-Retail Price
(DOR) programs for heating oil, kerosene and propane;
Encourage the use of existing dealer pre-buy, cap and
fixed price programs, and thereby discourage the creation of a distinct
class of customer because the customer uses the LIHEAP program;
Encourage leveraging options that are not prejudicial to
dealers with long-standing customer relationships. For example,
attempts by State programs will sometimes ``bid out'' the LIHEAP block
of fuel sales. This interferes with dealer-customer relationships that
are in many cases decades old; and
Restrict leveraging programs to only State regulated
utilities that engage in cost recovery through public utility
ratemaking procedures.
Our Recommendations Will:
Increase dealer participation in State LIHEAP programs, or
at a minimum, mitigate the decline in heating fuel dealers willing to
support the program.
Provide incentive for dealers who have historically been
strong supporters to continue to support the program. Ensure continuity
of service between dealers and customers with long-standing supply
relationships caused by ``bidding out'' the LIHEAP portion of household
fuel use to outside suppliers.
conclusion
Again, PMAA, NEFI and ICPA would very much like to thank the
subcommittee for the opportunity to submit testimony today. With
heating oil prices at all time highs, small businessmen and low-income
families will continue to feel the pinch. We would greatly appreciate
the chance to testify before the subcommittee in future hearings to
address the problems associated with MOR programs.
Prepared Statement of the National Energy Assistance Directors'
Association
The members of the National Energy Assistance Directors'
Association (NEADA), representing the State directors of the Low Income
Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are pleased to present this
testimony on the role of LIHEAP in meeting the heating and cooling
needs of some of the nation's poorest families. The members of NEADA
would like to first take this opportunity to thank the members of the
committee for their continued support in working to increase funding
for LIHEAP.
By way of background, there are four components to the LIHEAP
program:
Block grant providing formula grants to States to help
low-income families pay their heating and cooling bills.
Emergency contingency funds that can be released by the
Administration for a number of reasons including natural disasters,
rapid increases in home energy prices, high unemployment rates, and
other economic conditions.
Residential Energy Assistance Challenge (REACH) grant
providing competitive discretionary grants to States to develop new
strategies to assist households in reducing their home energy burden.
Leveraging grants providing States with additional
incentives to raise non-Federal funds for energy assistance.
In addition, the law authorizes the appropriation of advance funds
1 year before the start of the program year in order to allow States to
plan for the design of their programs. This is especially important in
years when the appropriation for the Federal fiscal year is delayed and
cold weather States have to start their programs without knowing the
final appropriation level. As a result, States sometimes have to revise
their program benefit and eligibility levels several times during the
course of the program year, until a final appropriation level is
reached. This can cause considerable delay and confusion in the
delivery of program services as well as additional administrative
costs.
AUTHORIZATION AND APPROPRIATIONS LEVELS
The LIHEAP appropriation level for fiscal year 2007 was $2.1
billion of which $1.98 billion was for the block grant and $181 million
was allocated for emergency contingency funding. Of the amount provided
for the block grant grant, $27.3 million was set-aside for REACH and
leveraging. No advance funding was appropriated.
For fiscal year 2008, the appropriation level provides the same
amount for the block grant and increases the emergency contingency
funding level by $408.6 million from $181.5 million to $590.3 million.
As in fiscal year 2007, no advance funding was appropriated.
The President's Budget for fiscal year 2009 would reduce the LIHEAP
budget by 22 percent from $2.57 billion to $2.0 billion by reducing the
block grant from $1.98 billion to $1.7 billion and the emergency
contingency fund from $590.3 million to $300 million.
The impact on low-income households would be severe. States would
have few choices but to either reduce the share of home heating costs
covered from 36.3 percent to 28.2 percent or the number of households
served by 1.2 million from 5.7 million to 4.5 million. The Budget
recommendations are very disappointing in light of continued high home
energy prices and reports of rising arrearages and shut-off rates
across the country.
The authorization level for LIHEAP was increased from $2 billion to
$5.1 billion by the Energy Policy Act in fiscal year 2005. The act also
continued the authorization level for emergency contingency funds at
$600 million. The program's authorization expired at the end of fiscal
year 2007. The following table compares the current block grant funding
level by State with the authorized funding level of $5.1 billion.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
LIHEAP allows States to set eligibility at the greater of 150
percent of the Federal poverty level, or 60 percent of State median
income. In fiscal year 2007, 150 percent of the Federal poverty level
for a family of four was $30,975. In practice, most States target funds
to lower income families.
More than 70 percent of families receiving LIHEAP have incomes of
less than 100 percent of the Federal poverty level ($20,650 for a
family of four) and 44 percent have incomes of less than 75 percent of
the poverty level ($15,488 for a family of four).
State agencies generally contract with non-profit agencies to
conduct outreach and sign-up activities. The application process is
relatively straightforward. Most States require only proof of income
and a copy of an applicant's most recent utility bills. Generally,
asset tests are not required and some States now allow applications by
mail.
HOUSEHOLDS SERVED
The number of households receiving assistance has been rising
rapidly. This reflects a significant rise in home energy prices and in
the numbers of low-income households. Since 2002, the number of
households receiving LIHEAP heating assistance has increased from 4.2
million to an estimated 5.7 million in fiscal year 2007. Even at this
level, the program is only able to serve 15.6 percent of eligible
households. The majority of households have at least one member who is
elderly, disabled or a child under the age of 5.
Families receiving LIHEAP assistance carry a higher energy burden
than most Americans--spending on average about 15 percent of their
income on home energy bills, as compared to 3.4 percent for all other
households. Many of these households also have at least one member who
is disabled (43 percent) or elderly (41 percent).
USES OF FORMULA GRANT FUNDS
LIHEAP is a block grant providing grantees with considerable
flexibility delivering program services. In designing their programs,
States are allowed to set-aside up to 10 percent of their allotment to
cover administrative costs, up to 15 percent of program funds (25
percent with a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services) to support weatherization activities and up to 5 percent to
support activities that enable households to reduce their home energy
needs, including needs assessments, counseling, and assistance with
energy vendors to reduce the price of energy.
On average, States set-aside 10 percent of their block grant to
support weatherization activities. These funds complement program
support provided by the Weatherization Assistance Program
(WAP). Weatherization assistance can include insulation, appliance
and furnace repair and replacement and related health and safety
measures. A weatherized home can use up to 30 percent less energy than
a comparable home.
States are also required to set-aside ``a reasonable amount'' of
funds to be used until March 15 of the program year for energy crisis
intervention. These interventions are defined to include households
that need additional assistance to address life-threatening situations
including shutoffs due to non-payment.
PROGRAM APPROPRIATIONS
The distribution of formula grant funds is based on a complex
formula that provides that no State beginning in fiscal year 1986 will
receive less than the amount of funds it would have received in fiscal
year 1984 if appropriations for fiscal year 1984 had been $1.975
billion. Fiscal year 1984 funds were distributed to States on the same
share of funds they received in fiscal year 1981 under the predecessor
program to LIHEAP, the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP).
The fiscal year 1981 allotment percentages were derived from an
extremely complex formula that included such factors as heating degree
days squared, home heating expenditures, total residential energy
expenditures, and the population with income equal to or less than 125
percent of the poverty income guidelines.
The law also provides that when the LIHEAP block grant
appropriation exceeds $1.975 billion (only in fiscal year 1985, fiscal
year 1986 and fiscal year 2006), not including $27.5 million in other
program setasides, funds are allocated under a complex formula that
includes cooling as well as heating degree days and a small State
minimum allocation.
LIHEAP is not an entitlement program like Medicaid providing a
minimum benefit level of health care coverage for eligible households.
When the number of households receiving Medicaid increases, for
example, the appropriation is automatically increased to guarantee the
same benefit level for all recipient households. In the case of LIHEAP,
however, when energy prices increase, the purchasing power of the
LIHEAP benefit is reduced; when the number of households receiving
assistance is increased, the average benefit is reduced. This is the
situation the program is currently facing.
DECLINING PURCHASING POWER
As everyone knows, energy prices have been rising. While the number
of households receiving LIHEAP has been relatively stable at about 5.5
million households or 15.6 percent of the eligible population since
fiscal year 2006, the average Federal LIHEAP appropriation grant has
decreased from $464 to $378. This would not be a problem if energy
prices were decreasing proportionally.
Est. Change in Households Served & Average Grant (FY 06-FY 08)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
# of
Appropriation Households Average
Fiscal year (in (in grant
thousands) thousands)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006........................... $3,162,000 5,521 $464
2007........................... 2,186,000 5,507 322
2008........................... 2,570,000 5,507 378
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Unfortunately, energy prices are remaining at very high levels.
Home heating prices are projected by the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA) to reach almost $1,000 this year for the typical
family, an increase of 9.3 percent since last year. As a result, there
has been a significant decrease in the program's purchasing power.
Between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2008, the average LIHEAP
grant as a percentage of total home heating costs declined from 32.4
percent to 19.3 percent for heating oil, 49.1 percent to 44.1 percent
for natural gas, 36.2 percent to 22.6 percent for propane and 59.3
percent to 44.9 percent for electricity. The increase provided for
fiscal year 2008 has helped to offset the decline, however, the share
of expenditures covered continues to be inadequate to meet the need.
Under the President's FY 2009 Budget, the decline would continue,
assuming energy prices remain at current level, with the average grant
declining to 34.9 percent of total costs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heating Natural
Fiscal year oil gas Propane Electricity
[percent] [percent] [percent] [percent]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2006.............................................................. 31.3 47.4 35.0 57.3
2007.............................................................. 20.8 37.6 22.6 37.1
2008.............................................................. 17.8 40.6 21.2 43.1
President 2009.................................................... 15.0 34.3 17.6 34.9
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The increase in the price of delivered fuels--heating oil and
propane--is of special concern to the States because they have fewer
controls over the pricing and delivery of these fuels than they do over
natural gas and electricity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration
has projected that the price of home heating oil will increase from the
2006-07 heating season by $532 (37.2 percent) to $1,962 and for propane
from $1,281 to $1,670 (30.4 percent).
A tank of heating oil, for example, now costs about $900, more than
half of the total monthly Social Security payment for the average aged
couple and almost the entire monthly income for an aged widower living
alone. The 2008 average increase in Social Security is only about $24 a
month, less than the amount needed to pay for the increase in home
heating oil this year.
Low-income families using heating oil this winter are facing a
difficult situation. This is specially true for those on fixed incomes
including the elderly and disabled. I do not expect the situation to
change anytime soon.
The situation for natural gas is quite different. Prices are set
domestically and have been increasing at a much slower rate. For
example, the average cost of home heating with natural gas is projected
at $858 for the current winter heating season, about $45 more than last
year and $1,104 less than the cost of home heating oil.
OUTLOOK FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008
The increase in emergency contingency funding provided by the
Omnibus Appropriations Act will help States adjust benefit levels to
pay for higher heating and cooling costs. Yesterday's release of funds
will provide needed help to offset the impact of higher energy costs
this winter.
The States are concerned that the increase will not be sufficient
to meet the growing need for energy assistance and offset the impact of
higher energy prices. We are currently conducting a survey of the
States and the reports are grim. The States are serving about 15.6
percent of eligible households. State directors believe that the
percent served needs to be increased to at least 25 percent of the
eligible households to help offset the growing affordability gap as
prices increase faster than the rate of income.
ARREARAGES AND SHUT-OFFS
One indicator of the rising need for energy assistance is the
increase in arrearages and shut-offs. The National Regulatory Research
Institute, for example, in a recent report found that past-due gas
utility accounts rose from 16.5 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2006.
Last spring, in a survey conducted by NEADA, States reported that 1.2
million households were cut off from natural gas and electric service
due to nonpayment of their energy bills. Several States reported
significant increases in arrearage and shut-off rates from previous
years. In addition, we are also learning that traditional arrearage
management programs that provide matching payment programs to help
families reduce their outstanding debt are becoming less and less
effective. States are reporting that families increasingly do not have
the resources to meet matching payment requirements and as a result are
at greater risk of shut-off.
SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING
Many States, in partnership with their local utilities, also
provide supplemental funding through direct appropriations or by
creating system benefit funds, which are small charges against the
utility rate base that are used to provide discounts and arrearage
protection programs. In addition, utilities have also taken steps to
provide low-income families with additional time to pay their bills by
providing flexible payment arrangement and in many cases actively
supporting State efforts to develop system benefit funds.
The combined total of State, utility and charitable giving was
about $3.2 billion in 2006 with charitable giving being the smallest
amount at about $140 million annually. It is important to note,
however, that these State, utility and charitable funds are no
substitute for adequate Federal funding. The level of support varies
considerably with only 12 States accounting for 83 percent of the total
non-Federal spending on energy assistance.
what happens when families do not have sufficient funds to pay for home
HEATING OR COOLING? RESEARCH FINDINGS
Funding provided by the appropriations committee has allowed us to
conduct surveys of families receiving LIHEAP assistance. Among the
findings of our last survey:
44 percent said that they skipped paying or paid less than
their entire home energy bill in the past year. Households with
children (67 percent) and those with income below 50 percent of the
Federal poverty level (62 percent) were more likely to do so.
30 percent reported that they received a notice or threat
to disconnect their electricity or home heating fuel. Again, households
with children (51 percent) and those with income below 50 percent of
the Federal poverty level (51 percent) were more likely to experience
this problem.
8 percent reported that their electricity or gas service
was shut off in the past year due to nonpayment of utility bills. In
addition, 16 percent of households with children and 22 percent with
income below 50 percent of the poverty level reported a service
termination in the past year.
18 percent said that they were unable to use their main
source of heat in the past year for reasons ranging from their heating
system was broken and they were unable to pay for its repair, they ran
out of their bulk fuel and could not afford to pay for more, or because
their utility used for heat was disconnected. Households with children
(27 percent) and households with income below 50 percent of the poverty
level (36 percent) were more likely to face this problem.
13 percent reported that broken air conditioners or
termination of electric service prevented them from using their air
conditioner. Households with a disabled member (19 percent) and
households with children (19 percent) were somewhat more likely to
report this problem.
PUBLIC HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF UNAFFORDABLE ENERGY
Unaffordable home energy presents a threat to public health and
safety directly in the following ways:
Households respond to high bills, arrearages, or worries
about incurring high costs, by choosing not to heat their homes
adequately in winter or cool them during the summer, or by using unsafe
means to heat or illuminate their homes, for example, heating with a
kitchen oven or barbecue grill or lighting by means of candles. Utility
service shutoffs directly threaten health in this manner. In addition,
when homes in poor structural shape need weatherization, it may be
prohibitively costly or impossible to keep interiors within a safe
temperature range.
Lack of access to energy assistance also threatens health
indirectly. The squeeze put on home budgets by high utility bills and
the threat of shutoff leads households to make difficult trade-offs,
purchasing heat or electricity for air-conditioning instead of food or
medications. In northern States, for example, poor families with
children spend less on food, and children eat fewer calories, compared
with higher-income families (Bhattacharya et al., 1993). Poor seniors
in the north are also more likely to go hungry in late winter and early
spring, while seniors in the south, where energy bills for air-
conditioning can be high, are more likely to go hungry in late summer
(Nord and Kantor, 2006).
Seasonal differences in heating and cooling costs explain
much of the difference in hunger prevalence for low-income households
with school-aged children. Young children from families that are
eligible for but not enrolled in energy assistance are more likely than
children from families receiving LIHEAP to be small for their age
(underweight) and more likely to need hospital admission on the day of
a health care visit (Frank et al., 2006).
Researchers from the Children's Sentinel Nutrition
Assessment Program (C-SNAP) at the Boston Medical Center, conclude that
``the health consequences of trade-offs in spending can be serious
especially for the youngest children. The first 3 years of life are a
uniquely sensitive period of extraordinary brain and body growth; the
cognitive and physical development that takes place at this stage will
never occur to the same degree again. Babies and toddlers who live in
energy insecure households are more likely to be in poor health; have a
history of hospitalization; be at risk of developmental problems and be
food insecure.''
REAUTHORIZATION RECOMMENDATIONS
The members of NEADA recommend that the following policies be
adopted to strengthen and maintain the current program by:
Increasing the percentage of eligible households served
from the current rate of less than 20 percent to up to 40 percent by
maintaining the current authorization level of $5.1 billion.
Maintaining the current program block grant structure that
allows States to develop new and innovative ways to stretch available
program resources, including the use of prepurchase programs,
negotiating discounts with vendors and arrearage forgiveness programs.
Continuing to limit the use of the LIHEAP funds for
purposes other than grant assistance. NEADA members believe that funds
should not be increased for other purposes including Assurance 16,
Weatherization Assistance and REACH demonstration grants, until there
are sufficient funds available to meet the core need for grant
assistance.
Encouraging State public utility commissions to collect
arrearage and shut-off data and making that data available to HHS and
the Congress to help document the need for the release of emergency
contingency funds. This data could serve as an indicator about the need
for emergency funds to meet potential affordability crises.
Endorsing raising the Secretary's training and technical
assistance program to $750,000, the same level as was authorized
previously.
Expanding the flexibility of States to provide REACH
grants to non-profits and community action agencies. Some States do not
contract with CAAs or non-profits to deliver LIHEAP services for a
variety of reasons; allowing States to provide REACH grants to other
providers, including State agencies, would enhance the delivery of
program services by helping to strengthen their delivery network.
CONCLUSION
There is no substitute for adequate Federal funding of LIHEAP. The
authorized level of $5.1 billion would provide sufficient funds to
increase grant levels to adjust for inflation in energy prices and
allow States to reach out to eligible households who are not currently
receiving assistance.
Thank for you this opportunity to testify today. NEADA we would be
happy to respond to any questions or requests for additional
information on this important program.
[Whereupon, at 11:53 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]