Northeast Lawmakers

Warn Of Home Heating Crisis

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Citing new government figures forecasting double-digit home heating cost increases, New England senators warned Tuesday that unless Congress moves quickly to boost fuel aid, the region’s poor and elderly residents will face a cold, bleak winter.

“This year, it’s inundating families all across New England,” said Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., adding that social service groups are warning of a potential disaster this winter among the 28,000 households in his state that receive fuel assistance.

“The families they serve are literally choosing between heating and eating,” Reed added. “It’s a crisis of great proportions.”

Natural gas prices are expected to rise 29 percent in the Northeast while heating oil costs jump 28 percent this winter, according to figures released Tuesday by the Department of Energy. Though the figures were down slightly from last month’s estimate, consumers still face steep increases in their heating bills this year, lawmakers said.

“As the months grow colder in Connecticut, people are going to feel the hardship and sting when they open their home heating bills,” said Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. “The time to act is now.”

Lawmakers from cold weather states are pushing for more government home heating assistance on Capitol Hill as winter nears. Dodd, Reed, and several other Democrats favor imposing windfall profit taxes on the record billions of dollars in third-quarter profits the nation’s biggest oil companies reported after the hurricanes that battered the Gulf Coast.

“Winter is coming, and it could easily become a perfect storm of high energy prices, bitter cold, and unaffordable heat for those in need,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., a leading advocate in Congress of increased home heating aid.

In Massachusetts, the typical family needing 800 gallons of heating oil this winter will pay about $2,000, approximately $500 more than last year, Kennedy said. About 134,000 Bay State households receive federal home heating aid.

The comments from concerned New England lawmakers came on the eve of Senate hearings where top oil company executives were be grilled about soaring energy prices, skyrocketing profits, and allegations of price-gouging.

Reed has proposed tapping windfall oil company profits for a $2.9 billion increase in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the government’s program to aid the poor and elderly with home heating bills.

Dodd is the lead co-sponsor of the Windfall Profits Rebate, a bill authored by Senator Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to put a 50 percent excise tax on oil costing more than $40 a barrel. Consumers would receive rebates from the revenues. Senator Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., also backs the Dorgan bill.

New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, also favors the concept of using windfall oil profits to boost fuel aid to the poor.