[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 113 (Thursday, September 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S8879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I wish to announce on the floor of the 
Senator that 34 colleagues--Democrats and Republicans alike--join me in 
a letter to the White House today.
  We are talking about what is going on with oil prices and what is 
going on with home heating costs. The projections are very frightening.
  We see home heating oil costs up 30 percent and natural gas costs up 
40 percent. For many of us in cold-weather States, this is a crisis 
issue. Specifically, we are talking about the Low-Income Energy 
Assistance Program.
  My colleague, Senator Harkin, has been a leader in this fight for a 
long, long time.
  The point is that the President has about $500 million right now in 
LIHEAP emergency funding that we could get back to the cold-weather 
States. LIHEAP is a terribly important addition to the negotiations on 
the appropriations bill this year. Also, for funding next year, we are 
saying add an additional $500 million. Otherwise, I think probably 
maybe 15 percent of the people who are eligible for LIHEAP funding will 
not get any.
  In the State of Minnesota, you are talking about, roughly speaking, 
90,000 households. About a third of them are elderly. This is a 
lifeline program. It is not a lot--maybe $350 a year. But it helps 
people with their heating costs.
  What is going on now means that the heating costs are going to go way 
up. If we don't add some funding to this program, we are going to have 
people who are cold, or they will not buy prescription drugs, or they 
will not have food on the table. This is a huge issue.
  I urge the President and the White House in negotiations to be strong 
on funding for LIHEAP. We need the additional $500 million now and an 
additional $500 million next year. We have to make sure this important 
lifeline program is funded.
  I visited a lot of people in their homes. Many of them are elderly 
people. This makes a huge difference to them. I am really worried about 
what is going to happen.
  By the way, for the information of colleagues, it is interesting to 
me that we have focused on OPEC countries. An interesting story came 
out in the past couple of days that the non-OPEC oil countries, that 
collectively produce more than half the world's crude oil, rather than 
producing more to meet the additional demands, are producing less.
  Exxon-Mobil--we have these mergers, acquisitions. We have monopolies 
and a cartel. I think they are in a position to fix prices. If there 
ever was a case to be made for antitrust action, this is a pretty 
decisive area in the economy where we ought to be looking at these 
conglomerates and holding them accountable for putting more competition 
into this industry.

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