WASHINGTON, DC – As the price of heating oil continues to rise, Congressman Bill Delahunt joined with Joseph P. Kennedy III, CEO of Citizens Energy today to announce continuation of the CITGO discount home heating oil program for the 2007-2008 winter season.   

“We are facing a crisis as winter arrives and home heating costs continue to spiral out of control. The Department of Energy estimates that overall home heating costs will cost an average household an additional $1000 this winter,” Delahunt said. “This comes at a time, when the five largest oil companies are on track to make record profits totaling $119 billion in 2007. No one should have to choose between heating their home and feeding their family.”

Delahunt’s involvement with the program began in 2005 when he brokered a first-in-the-nation discount oil deal with the CITGO Petroleum Corporation for low-income Massachusetts households. He joined with Kennedy, CITGO CEO Alejandro Granado, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez,  Braintree Mayor Joe Sullivan, State Representative Bruce Ayers, and various community leaders, in Braintree, to welcome this year's initial shipment of oil on the MS Simon.

“Despite soaring profits, CITGO is once again the only company that is willing to sell discounted oil to the poor,” Delahunt said. He noted that he and other members of the Massachusetts Delegation have written to the other major oil companies in the past and have received little or no response.

To view a graph of the record profits of oil companies since 2002, please click here.

This program, carried out in partnership by CITGO and Citizens Energy Corporation and made possible by CITGO and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, will provide millions of gallons of heating oil to thousands of families in need throughout 16 states, including Massachusetts.

Massachusetts is the program’s second largest state in terms of beneficiaries. The program will deliver approximately 8.5 million gallons of heating oil to more than 33,000 households and around 60 homeless shelters. Local oil dealers will deliver 100 gallons of fuel at no cost to eligible families throughout the state. 

The program has been so successful that last October President Bush's Energy Secretary, Sam Bodman said: "I view it as a charitable donation and wish more companies did it," referring to past donations of heating oil by Venezuela to states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York.

In the Congress, Delahunt has been a strong supporter of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and called on President Bush last month to fully fund it.

“I was disappointed when President Bush vetoed a funding bill last month which included funding for the LIHEAP program,” Delahunt said. “The President has no compassion for the millions of Americans that were put at risk by his veto which provides assistance to 5.8 million families nationwide. As Massachusetts may be facing the most expensive winter ever, the least that we can do, as a nation is to fully fund the LIHEAP program, and continue to urge major oil companies to provide discounted oil.”

To read Delahunt’s letter requesting full funding for the LIHEAP program, please click here

Families interested in receiving the discounted heating oil can call Citizens Energy Corporation at 1-877-JOE-4-OIL (1-877-564-4645) and apply online at www.citizensenergy.com. Once approved, the household receives an authorization letter and calls its heating oil dealer to arrange a delivery of up to 100 gallons of heating oil.

To read a recent article from USA Today on the high heating costs, please click here.

 

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