Congressman Gene Green (TX29) :: Column :: Federal Energy Assistance: a HEAP of Nothing for Texas
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June 15, 2003
Federal Energy Assistance: a HEAP of Nothing for Texas
 
By Congressman Gene Green
 
Washington, DC - The temperature is high, as it is every Houston summer.  Electric bills are also rising, due to high natural gas prices.  Making matters worse, unemployment is up also, with over 700,000 Texans searching for a job.  To top it off, funding for State energy assistance programs was cut this year by the legislature in Austin. 
 
When low income folks get hit financially, by a lay-off or medical crisis, they struggle to pay the bills.  Rent is paid first, then food, then the lights and air conditioning.  If someone loses their air conditioning during a Houston summer, serious health effects can result, as the Houston Chronicle thoroughly documented in a front page June 1, 2003 article, “Heat Wave Heralds a Deadly Season.” 
 
What can be done?  Well, during the 1970s energy crisis, Congress created the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, to help folks in desperate need of heating and cooling their homes.  LIHEAP is cherished by millions up North, who use it to help pay the bills in winter, keeping seniors and children from freezing to death. 
 
LIHEAP is a justifiable idea, but the funding is allocated according to an unfair, out-of-date, ridiculous formula.  In plain English, the formula says that, in the eyes of the government, heating is more important than cooling and if it is 10 degrees in Minnesota, they get help, but when it is 100 degrees in Texas, we get next to nothing. 
 
With an average of 16 people perishing from the Houston heat each summer and countless more suffering from heat related complications to heart conditions, lung conditions, and other ailments, there is a public health justification for action.  In 2000, there were 38 heat related deaths in the Houston area alone, while there were 26 cold-related deaths reported in the entire country.
 
I am afraid the need this year will be especially critical.  Over 40,000 Houston area families got their power cut off in the summer of 2000 and almost 60,000 were cut off in 2001. Only 14,443 people received 2001 cooling assistance in the entire state of Texas. 
 
The summer of 2003 will see with higher energy prices and a sluggish economy, and we will see many more thousands cut off.  More uncollectible bills also mean less cash for utilities, which make up the difference from everybody else.  It is a sad fact that many of those lost to Houston’s heat are senior citizens who could not afford to cool their homes. 
 
So, why can’t Uncle Sam use LIHEAP to help us improve health in Houston?
 
Unfortunately, the program has been dominated by Northern states and powerful politicians who defend the existing formula.  A room full of PhDs would find the formula hard to understand, but the results are crystal clear.  Texas has 10% of America’s low income families, and we receive $10 per low income person in LIHEAP funding, the lowest of any state.  Minnesota has 1/10th of our low income population, but receives over $160 per person. 
 
No one wants to make poor folks shiver through a Minnesota winter, but should we ignore ten times as many sweating it out in Texas?  Some say that if Congress ever funded LIHEAP to the full $3.4 billion allowed for in the pending Energy Policy Act of 2003, Texas would do much better, due to some extremely complicated mathematics.
 
Well that sounds good, but Congress never seems to find that extra funding (only $1.8 billion in 2001), so the northern states get to go first, and when it is our turn the money is all gone.  Fully funding LIHEAP will quadruple Texas’ dollars, but it will not solve the underlying problem of fairness. 
 
The LIHEAP formula needs to be reformed, and I have introduced legislation to require a 50-50 split for heating and cooling.  I have also successfully added an amendment to the House Energy Policy Act of 2003 to do the study work necessary to reform a program that is still using energy consumption data from the late 1970s.  President Bush’s administration will need to follow through and back a rational proposal to treat his own home state fairly.
 
Of course there is a financial cost to a program like LIHEAP, but when state regulators ban shut-offs to save lives, as they did here in September 2000, we all eventually pay for those uncollectibles in our own power bills.  Foremost in my mind this summer and every summer is the human health costs to poor folks in our communities.
 
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