Appropriations

Senate Rejects Additional Funding for LIHEAP

December 22, 2005

This is clearly a sad day for the Congress. In order to secure passage of the Department of Defense spending bill, the Senate stripped out the ANWR drilling provisions along with $8 billion in other spending initiatives including the $2 billion in additional funds for LIHEAP. There is no question that this was done out of spite. Senator Stevens is furious about losing ANWR and viewed the additional funding for LIHEAP as a way to buy off votes from cold weather states. So, the next steps will be to again push for more funding when Congress returns in January as soon as the next supplemental appropriations bill is taken up. There is strong support for additional funding, however, I was hoping that we would get it before states begin to run out funds and families have to make the tough choices that have been documented in the studies. As a strop gap measure, we will immediately push for the release of the $184 million in emergency funds available in the Labor, HHS bill plus remaining $20 million from last year. The Labor. HHS bill is expected to pass today.