A federal program that helped struggling customers pay their utility bills remains in limbo after the Trump administration fired its entire staff earlier this month.
About 25 staffers were responsible for calculating and disbursing funds annually from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to U.S. states, territories and tribes.
Now experts worry what will become of the remaining LIHEAP funds.
“How do they plan to allocate the funds if there's nobody there to do the work?” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
This fiscal year alone, approximately $4 billion was designated for the program by Congress. While most of that money has already been distributed this heating season, about $378 million remains.
The cuts at LIHEAP are part of an ongoing reduction led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, which targeted thousands of workers across the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Last week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions invited Kennedy to testify about the mass layoffs, but that hearing was postponed.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, the ranking member for the committee, sent a letter to Kennedy demanding that the staff at LIHEAP be reinstated. Thirty senators, including some in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, also signed on.
“Failure to disburse these funds constitutes an illegal impoundment of bipartisan, congressionally appropriated funds and will put the health and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in America at risk,” the letter stated.
The move has also been criticized by state legislators and advocates for coming at a time of financial anxiety, such as increasing grocery prices and a fluctuating stock market. Without the financial assistance, Wolfe said that many in the Midwest and Great Plains will have more problems paying their bills.
“We've done surveys,” he said. “We know what happens. People go without. They don't buy medicine. They cut back on food. They cut back on clothing and other essentials in order to pay that bill.”
Feared impacts as utility rates rise
LIHEAP, which was created in 1981, is responsible for serving more than 6 million people around the country — nearly 2 million of whom are in Midwest and Great Plains states.
When customers are at risk of being shut off from utility services, they can apply to LIHEAP for emergency assistance to stop it, or even after the fact. While Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas have protection policies to keep cooling from being turned off during hot weather, at least 29 states do not.
As a result, some utility customers may choose not to use their air conditioning out of fear that it could increase their bill significantly.
Karen Lusson, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said those decisions could increase the risk for heat strokes and even death. She’s especially concerned for the vulnerable, including the elderly, young children and people with disabilities.
“It puts families at risk, is what it means. The home becomes uninhabitable,” she said. “That's just a fact.”
Lusson, who is based in Illinois, has spent years working on consumer protections for Midwestern utility customers, particularly around affordability programs. She said the costs of heating and cooling continue to increase, which makes it even more concerning if LIHEAP is gone by the time Congress is supposed to appropriate its funding this fall.
“What's happening undeniably across the country is that electric and gas utility rates are increasing at a rate higher than the rate of inflation,” Lusson said. “And so there again, LIHEAP is just a critical piece of maintaining affordable monthly utility bills.”
Sandra Padgett, executive director of the Consumers Council of Missouri, is concerned that the loss of LIHEAP will compound the financial burdens for low-income families already dealing with rate increases. Padgett points to a bill signed last week by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, which will allow utility providers to charge customers for power plants before they are built, among other policy changes.
Padgett’s organization estimates the new law, when fully in effect, will add an extra $1,115 to Missouri household utility bills annually.
“If you are going to continue to increase utility costs, what are you gonna do to strengthen the safety net?” she asked.
The non-profit is focused on health care access, as well as utilities and other consumer issues in the state. Along with heat-related illnesses, Padgett said that hotter households that can’t afford air conditioning or power could suffer when it comes to groceries or medications.
“It also creates a situation where you can't refrigerate your food and that can lead to food spoilage,” Padgett said. “If someone's a diabetic and they need to refrigerate their insulin without electricity, they may try to manage it with coolers, but that is not as good of a resource as access to a refrigerator that can keep that medicine cool at the temperature that it needs to be.”
While low-income households are likely to bear the brunt from the latest cuts at LIHEAP, Padgett said it could become a “social services disaster” for communities in Missouri and around the country.
“This can very likely create a situation where there's more strain on the hospitals. There's more strain on the social service agencies. It may even increase crime,” she said.
For utility providers like the Omaha Public Power District in Nebraska, the funding has become a crucial part of their services.
Britton Gabel, the manager of advocacy solutions at OPPD, said they had approximately 14,000 customers who participated in LIHEAP programming, which was worth $5.7 million in funds.
“Almost one in four of our customers that we serve are low-income, meaning that their household income is at 200% or less of the federal poverty level,” Gabel said. “These programs really matter and make a difference and help them be able to afford their bill by reducing their electric burden.”
Although OPPD has its own affordability programs separate from LIHEAP, Gabel said he hopes the LIHEAP funds will be released ahead of summer, when their customers need air conditioning.
“It is the cornerstone of utility affordability throughout the country,” he said. “It fills a gap that exists.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
