Federal funding restored for low-income Alabama utility assistance after outcry
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
A program meant to help low-income Alabamians pay their utility bills has resumed two weeks after it was canceled due to an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, which administers the grants, told Inside Climate News this week in a one-sentence email that it 'has resumed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program – Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.'
The department did not respond to multiple requests for more information or answer whether it had received guidance from the federal government to reinstate the program after numerous local and national media outlets reported on the story.
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The controversy started when 255 households that get power from Huntsville Utilities in north Alabama received letters stating that a $100 credit they had received from the program had been 'rescinded,' and that these households would have to pay back that amount on their next bill.
'… the grant you received for $100.00 on January 23, 2025 is no longer valid due to President Trump's Executive Order to rescind the funding behind the grant,' the letter states. 'The grant you received for $100.00 has been debited to your account and will be due with your next invoice.'
The media reports focused on those 255 households, but the impact was much larger.
Mike Presley, a spokesman for ADECA, told Inside Climate News last week that 'about 2,000' households in Alabama were in some stage of receiving those funds.
Presley said on Feb. 11 that ADECA was 'awaiting further guidance from federal agencies on how to proceed.'
Joe Gehrdes, director of external affairs for Huntsville Utilities, told Inside Climate News on Friday that the federal funds have been restored to the 255 households that received the letters earlier this month.
'We can confirm the funds are reaching those affected by the previous pause,' Gehrdes said via email. 'Our billing department has been in contact with our local Community Action Partnership, and everything is moving forward as originally intended.'
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program is an effort by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Presley said $53 million of that funding would continue. However, the program received an additional $1 million through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, more commonly called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Presley said that $1 million was halted due to Trump's executive order 'Unleashing American Energy,' which directs agencies to 'immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.'
It's unclear at this time if or when ADECA received federal guidance to resume the program.
Daniel Tait, executive director of clean energy advocacy group Energy Alabama, said questions remain about why Alabama halted and then reinstated the program, while other states never rescinded the funds in the first place.
'We are glad to see that the 2000 or so Alabamians who were promised energy assistance will now get the help they need,' Tait said in an email. 'It appears that the situation was limited to Alabama which raises questions about why our state withheld funds and our neighbors did not.
'Moving fast and breaking things is not smart energy policy and real people get hurt in the crossfire,' Tait said.
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