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LIHEAP
Sep 9, 06:25 PM
Meriden Record Journal editorial
U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, who represents the 5th district (which includes Meriden and Cheshire) in Congress, has called upon the president to release $ 100 million in unallocated funding to help pay for heating oil for citizens this winter.
We’d like to add our voice to his in calling for the use of this money in this way. Specifically, the program is called LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program). You’d think it obvious to everyone that many Connecticut people will suffer to keep their homes even modestly warm this winter. Last year, LIHEAP helped 86,000 state residents this way; it will only increase this winter.
Yet opposition in Washington and in the White House is particularly strong. When members proposed a $2.5 billion increase for LIHEAP before Congress broke for the August recess, the president threatened a veto. The $2.5 billion, he said, would add to the deficit. Many somewhat cynical observers have noted that such an addition to the deficit would dwindle to insignificance compared to the daily cost of running the war in Iraq. Nonetheless, the presidential approach is not much changed now that we are in September.
What has changed, though, is the calendar. The year is ebbing away. Even a $100 million increase, rather than that rejected $ 2.5 billion, would help. And the need is now, not ten years from now whenthe theoretical oil to be found under the continental shelves mightwork its way through refineries and into tanks.
We urge Murphy and his colleagues to keep the pressure up with the president. Not only is the weather going to become colder, but themoney allocated will expire with Sept. 30 — which is what some New Englanders may begin doing as the thermometer drops.
