Source : Demonstrators rally on Saturday in a protest organized against interference at Harvard by the Trump administration. Photograph: Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters
RFK Jr urged to release nearly $400m allocated to help families combat heat
Nina Lakhani
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of health and human services, is facing new demands to release almost $400m allocated by Congress to help low-income US families keep the air conditioning on this summer.
The funds are under threat after the staff running a decades old program were fired – as part of the Trump administration’s so-called ‘efficiency’ drive.
States and tribal nations are still waiting for funding allocated by Congress for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) – a chronically underfunded bipartisan program that helped around 6 million households keep on top of energy bills last year.
The money is stuck in limbo after the Trump administration this month eliminated the division of energy assistance (DEA) – the office within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees the four-decade old program – and fired the entire staff.
Pressure is now growing on Kennedy to reinstate the staff and guarantee that the energy aid be distributed to the states – in compliance with the administration’s constitutional obligation to abide with congressional appropriations.
An estimated one in six households are behind on their energy bills, according to NEADA, which means millions of families could be at risk of utilities shutting off power in what’s expected to be another record-breaking hot summer.
Amid a protracted cost of living crisis, one in four households were unable to keep up with energy bills last year, according to the Census Bureau.
In the northern cold states, LIHEAP helped keep the heat on for more than 43,000 households in Michigan and 26,000 Vermonters. But in the short-term it is mostly southern states where residents are most likely to suffer first, especially as deadly heat waves increase due to global heating.
In Arizona, just over 37,000 residents qualified for LIHEAP assistance last year. In Phoenix, the US’s hottest major city, residents endured a record 113 consecutive days at or over 100F. Even with LIHEAP, almost one in four heat deaths in Maricopa county, where Phoenix is located, happened indoors. A significant proportion did not have electricity and/or a functioning air conditioning unit.
emonstrators rally on Saturday in a protest organized against interference at Harvard by the Trump administration. Photograph: Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters
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