As winter temperatures in the Northeast plunged to single digits, the Senate last Thursday overwhelmingly passed a major omnibus spending bill that, among other things, calls for a $300 million increase in federal assistance to help low-income heating customers pay their utility bills throughout 2003. At the same time, President Bush released additional emergency funds last week to aid the public during the cold snap.

The Senate’s $390 billion spending package, which would fund the federal government through Sept. 30, would bring total spending for the Low-Income Heating Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to $2 billion for the current fiscal year. The additional monies earmarked for the program by the Senate would come from LIHEAP funds that were left over from 2001.

The House has voted to maintain spending at the 2002 level of $1.7 billion for LIHEAP as part of its spending package. The two house must now go to conference to reconcile their differences.

The Senate bill also reathorizes the Price Anderson Act, which limits the amount of a company payout in the event of an accident at a nuclear facility, and it gives the president permanent authority to release or drawdown crude oil supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the event of an emergency, a Capitol Hill aide said.

The additional LIHEAP funds, assuming the Senate’s level of spending for the program prevails, could be distributed to the states through the Department of Human Health and Services (HHS) within a matter of weeks, said a natural gas industry source in Washington, DC. He noted that 80-90% of LIHEAP funds are used during the winter months to defray the heating costs for low-income customers.

Capitol Hill lawmakers favor more aggressive spending for LIHEAP than President Bush, who has proposed cutting funding for the base LIHEAP program to $1.4 billion for 2003, and setting aside an additional $300 million for emergency funds. But “my gut [feeling] is [Bush] will not oppose” any hike in LIHEAP spending approved by Congress this year, the industry source noted.

Bush released $200 million in emergency funds last week for low-income heating assistance, leaving about $100 million in contingency LIHEAP funds available for future emergencies. With the latest release, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday the Bush administration has made $1.5 billion in base and contingency LIHEAP monies available this heating season.

Citing the president’s concern over rising energy prices, Fleischer said last Wednesday Bush will call for increased LIHEAP spending for fiscal 2004 as part of his budget request to be sent to Congress in early February. “I’m not going to give out the specific numbers,” he told reporters, when pressed for the amount of the hike.

“We’re very pleased” by the Senate’s action because the $300 million would go for the base LIHEAP program, the gas industry source said. “It’s more important to have it [the spending increase] in the base program” because the funds are more easily diverted to the states, instead of the emergency program where “you never know if it will be released” to help the estimated 4.5 million heating customers served by the program.

The Senate’s move to increase LIHEAP funding “will clearly make a difference…the states are running out of money” for the program, said Mark Wolfe, who heads up the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents the state energy directors who help to dole out the funds.

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