Last May, the Trump administration proposed eliminating a key federal program that lowers energy bills for low-income households. Now, amid a mounting energy-affordability crisis, that program has officially survived — and even gotten a funding boost.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed a spending bill with more than $4 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Since 1981, the federal initiative has helped millions of Americans pay their utility bills, undertake energy-related home repairs, and make weatherization upgrades that save them money.
Now, LIHEAP has $20 million more than it had last year. The spending line item was part of a roughly $1.2 trillion package to end the partial government shutdown, which passed 217–214 in the House and 71–29 in the Senate.
“LIHEAP provides a lifeline for families who are having trouble paying their utility bills,” said Xavier Boatright, deputy legislative director at the Sierra Club. “For now, we are glad that Congress has acknowledged that letting families suffer without heating or cooling assistance in the face of extreme weather events is truly cruel.”
The move is a stark reversal in the Trump administration’s war on energy efficiency, which last spring threatened to terminate LIHEAP as well as slash other key programs meant to keep household utility bills in check. But energy costs are soaring across the U.S. and have become a pivotal political issue, helping propel Democrats to victory in several state races last November.
Though the funding is enough to assist about 6 million low-income families with their heating and cooling bills this year, it covers only about 17% of eligible households, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association.
And despite the new funding — which is comparable to allocations in recent years — the program did take a major hit last April when the Department of Health and Human Services fired the entire team administering LIHEAP.
Still, the program, which provides block grants that states administer, is limping along, according to Wolfe. “They’re leaning on grant-management staff to process state payments and a very small number of senior [staff at the Office of the Administration for Children and Families] to manage policy.”
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