WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump desires to make some fairly devastating cuts to the Division of Health and Human Companies in his new 2026 funds request.
However one of many cruelest is a line buried in HHS’ Finances in Temporary: “The budget eliminates funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.”
The federal block grant program, sometimes called LIHEAP, has been round for many years and helps thousands and thousands of individuals in low-income households pay their power payments. Critically, it helps seniors, households with youngsters, and other people with disabilities maintain their warmth on within the useless of winter and funky air blowing within the sweltering days of summer time. Greater than 6 million households presently depend on LIHEAP for assist with power payments.
The Trump administration seems to justify gutting LIHEAP by tying it to range, fairness and inclusion initiatives in authorities, all of which Trump desires to eradicate.
“Savings come from eliminating radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory programs, which weaponized large swaths of the Federal Government against the American people and moving programs that are better suited for States and localities to provide,” reads the HHS funds temporary, simply earlier than it requires zeroing out LIHEAP funding.
To make certain, the president’s funds request isn’t going to grow to be regulation. It has to make its means by Congress, the place lawmakers will make all types of modifications to it. However it’s going to fall on Republicans to combat to protect LIHEAP.
The Trump administration has already crippled the low-income power program. On April 1, HHS introduced it was placing 10,000 federal staff on administrative go away by June 2, at which they’d be terminated. This included your complete workers working LIHEAP. Twenty state attorneys basic intervened in Could and sued HHS, claiming the mass firings had been unlawful and calling for everybody’s jobs to be restored. The lawsuit continues to be underway.
State directors that present LIHEAP help nonetheless have federal cash to maintain working this 12 months, however with out federal workers, this system’s future appears to be like grim. Trump zeroing out its whole funds actually seems like its demise knell.
Whereas Republicans in Congress are overwhelmingly beholden to Trump, they don’t have robust margins in both chamber. If even a handful of GOPers push again on a provision in a invoice, their opposition might tank the entire thing.
LIHEAP might draw such pushback. Home and Senate Republicans have known as on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to revive this system’s workers and vouched for its want.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), probably the most politically susceptible in his get together, advised Kennedy in April this system is “vital” to his neighborhood.
“The program supports our most vulnerable populations, including seniors, individuals with disabilities, and households with young children under the age of six,” Lawler wrote to Kennedy. “In FY 2023, 24% of New Yorkers reported being unable to pay their energy bill at least once in a 12-month period. During FY 2023, LIHEAP also helped prevent over 100,000 utility disconnections in New York alone, highlighting this program’s critical need.”
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) led a bipartisan letter to Kennedy in April urging him to reverse course on LIHEAP workers cuts.
“We write regarding reports that you have terminated staff responsible for administering the LowIncome Home Energy Program,” reads their letter, signed by 13 senators. “If true, these terminations threaten to devastate a critical program dedicated to helping Americans afford their home energy bills.
“It is an indispensable lifeline, helping to ensure that recipients do not have to choose between paying their energy bills and affording other necessities like food and medicine,” stated the senators.
Individually, Murkowski instantly advised the HHS secretary in Could how essential LIHEAP help is for individuals in her state.
“For us it’s not a budget line item,” she advised Kennedy as he testified earlier than a Senate committee. “You’ve been to Alaska. You know that the temperatures there can get really, really tough. [LIHEAP] keeps people from freezing to death in their homes.”
The destiny of LIHEAP will nearly actually come up this week on Capitol Hill, with each the Home and Senate again in session and Trump’s funds request now awaiting their motion.
Aides to Murkowski, Collins and Lawler didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark regarding Trump’s funds request zeroing out LIHEAP funding.
