[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 46 (Monday, March 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 ELIMINATION OF LIHEAP IS IRRESPONSIBLE

  (Mr. BALDACCI asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, our Republican colleagues have proposed 
the elimination of funds for the LIHEAP Program. This is simply 
irresponsible.
  The winter in Maine is long and cold. Last month in Presque Isle, the 
temperature averaged just 9 degrees. That's relatively warm. In January 
1994, the average temperature was minus .7 degree. Last winter, 60,000 
Maine households received help from the LIHEAP Program.
  An elderly woman in Woodland, ME, recently sent a letter to the State 
agency that oversees LIHEAP funds to say thank you for her fuel 
assistance. She said that she had high medication costs and lived on a 
meager income, and that without LIHEAP, she would have been forced to 
stop buying the medications that keep her well.
  Nobody should be forced to choose between heat and medicine or heat 
and food. This proposal unfairly targets two highly vulnerable 
populations: children and the elderly. That is wrong. It is not the 
fault of children or the poor or the elderly that our Nation faces high 
deficits and debts. They should not have the budget balanced on their 
backs.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this proposal to kill the LIHEAP 
Program. LIHEAP is not waste; it is not pork; it is an effective 
program that saves lives and deserves to be maintained.

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