The Trump administration has not distributed more than $400
million meant to help low-income Americans pay heating and cooling costs, as the Iran
war drives up energy costs and Senate appropriators demand that the funds be released.
The outstanding funds represent roughly 10 percent of the $4.45 billion Congress
appropriated for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps
roughly 6 million households annually.
LIHEAP supporters say the holdup could not have come at a worse time. A nationwide
cold snap, coupled with already rising electricity and gas prices this winter, means many
Americans struggled more than usual to pay their bills. The U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran in
late February, and Iran’s subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, created further
price shocks.
States received the bulk of LIHEAP funds in November, shortly after Congress passed a
stopgap funding measure. But they have not received additional funds included in the
fiscal 2026 spending bill Congress passed at the beginning of February. State LIHEAP
administrators say it typically takes the Department of Health and Human Services,
which administers the program, 30 days to release funds following the passage of an
appropriations bill.
State directors of LIHEAP programs and Senate appropriators have urged the funds to be
released in letters to the administration.
“Any delay in the release of the appropriated funds would set back states’ efforts to cover outstanding bills related to unexpected, delivered fuels emergencies, to weatherize low-income homes and to plan for summer cooling programs,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote in a letter also signed by 40 senators. Collins led the letter
along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
HHS fired most of the staff dedicated to administering LIHEAP during a reorganization
last year. At the same time, the White House has renewed its push to eliminate LIHEAP,
writing in its fiscal 2027 budget request that it wants to “instead support low-income
individuals through lower energy prices and an American First economic platform.”
The White House also accused the program of fraud and said LIHEAP is unnecessary
since many state laws prevent investor-owned utilities from turning off power during the
winter months.
Asked four questions about both the delayed release of funds and the reason for pushing
to eliminate the program, White House Office of Management and Budget
communications director Rachel Cauley responded with a single statement.
“As has been well reported for many years, LIHEAP is rife with fraud and
disproportionately rewards states like California and New York that not only have radical
Green New Scam policies but use it to house illegal immigrants on the taxpayer’s dime,”
she wrote in an email. “President Trump ran on the promise to eliminate wasteful and fraudulent spending. Further, states already have their own policies to prevent utility
disconnection, so there is no need for a duplicative and failed federal program.”
Cauley did not respond to two follow-up questions asking whether the administration is
purposely withholding the already-appropriated LIHEAP funds due to the fraud
allegations nor did she respond to questions about concerns that the Iran war has raised
heating fuel costs.
Cauley did not provide evidence backing the fraud allegations. When asked about the
withheld LIHEAP funds, HHS provided a nearly identical statement, as well as links to
2026 audits of Michigan and New York’s LIHEAP programs. Those audits found both
states “did not effectively monitor” LIHEAP funds but do not include any findings of
fraud.
Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association,
said it’s not unusual for there to be some delays between when Congress finalizes an
appropriations package and states receive the money. But many of NEADA’s members —
the state and local officials who administer the LIHEAP grants — expected the funds to
be released in early March, he said.
“We’re very concerned because states will start to run out of money,” he said.
In the Boston area, families are being forced to make heartbreaking choices, said Andrea
Mendoza, who directs energy services at Action for Boston Community Development.
The nonprofit helps the Massachusetts disseminate federal LIHEAP funds.
When HHS released the majority of LIHEAP funds to the states this fall, her organization
calculated that it could give each household receiving assistance an initial payment of
$1,400.
Those funds didn’t last long this winter. In Massachusetts, Mendoza said, most home
heating oil companies won’t deliver less than 100 gallons at a time. At the beginning of
heating season, the price was $3.60 a gallon, meaning the LIHEAP benefit lasted clients
about a month before it ran out.
Those prices surged to more than $5 a gallon within a week of the beginning of the Iran
war, Mendoza said. While her group has some remaining funds for new recipients asking
for help, it has received several requests from households that already received their
initial LIHEAP benefit asking when they might receive more funds.
“It was 40 degrees and snowing yesterday and I had someone come into my office saying
that they were not going to be turning their heat on because the LIHEAP funding they
had hadn’t lasted,” she said Thursday. “These are folks on a fixed income, it’s no fault of their own, but they can’t bridge that gap, and they would rather not heat their homes
than be responsible for outrageous bills.”
Other clients, Mendoza said, have turned to “dangerous choices” like forgoing
prescriptions or food to pay their energy bills, or heating their homes by keeping gas
stoves running.
“It’s very dangerous and concerning,” she said.
Elizabeth Marx, who chairs a LIHEAP advisory board for the Pennsylvania Department
of Human Services, said the program’s remaining funds are being withheld at a critical
time.
While the administration has said that LIHEAP is not necessary because states prevent
utilities from shutting off power during the winter, Marx noted that those moratoriums
expire. And when they do, residents still have to pay for the energy they used or risk
having their power shut off.
Pennsylvania’s moratorium just expired, and Marx, who is also executive director of the
Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, is expecting utility terminations to be “worse than we
have ever seen.”
If the state had the remaining LIHEAP funds in hand, she said, it could help families pay
their bills and avoid shut-offs.
“It has been a very cold, very costly winter, and our clients, who are mostly seniors with
disabilities and families with young children, are now facing very high bills,” she said.
“There is just overwhelming need.”
President Donald Trump has acknowledged that high energy bills can cause people to
forgo heating or cooling their homes, with dire results. Speaking from the Oval Office in
February, he blamed increasing energy prices on Biden-era climate regulations.
“People are dying because there was no air conditioning, or there was no heating,” he
said, while announcing EPA’s repeal of the so-called endangerment finding. The finding,
the legal underpinning for most climate rules, stated that climate change endangers
human health.
The Trump administration asserted consumers would save money from the repeal,
relying on the assumption that gasoline prices would drop from about $2.91 at the time
to $2.25 in 2027. It made similar arguments to underpin its weakening of fuel economy
standards for cars and trucks.
The Iran war has undermined those claims, with projected gas prices for 2026 rising to
$3.34 per gallon.
Both LIHEAP and the nation’s fuel economy standards were created to help Americans
cope with an earlier fuel crisis — the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s. Wolfe said
threatening LIHEAP funds today, as the U.S. faces another energy crisis, is a “tone deaf”
move for the administration.
“They could have done what we’ve done in the past and said we want to protect families
from the costs of this war, but instead it’s like, ‘Poor people can manage somehow, they
are on their own.’”