Golden, Pingree condemn mass firing of low income heating assistance workers
Thousands of Mainers rely on the federal heating assistance program whose entire staff the Trump administration fired on Tuesday, leaving its future uncertain.
The Low Income Heating Assistance Program is federally funded and provides financial assistance to lower income households to reduce the cost of energy bills.
While the program remains in effect, its roughly 20 federal staffers were among the approximately 10,000 Department of Health and Human Services workers terminated this week as part of a mass layoff to make the agency 'more responsive and efficient.'
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden responded to the firings on social media, writing in a post on X, 'What 'efficiency' is achieved by firing everyone in Maine whose job is to help Mainers afford heating oil when it's cold?'
For fiscal year 2025, Maine was awarded about $37.6 million in LIHEAP funding, as well as about $1.4 million for the Wabanaki Nations, according to a press release from Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins last fall.
Most of that funding has already been received, however, the last 10% is funded through the continuing budget resolution Congress passed in March.
In a social media post condemning the firings, Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree asked, 'How will LIHEAP distribute these funds (which have ALREADY been allocated by Congress) without staff? Make it make sense.'
Without the assistance, families will have to choose between heating their homes and putting food on the table, Pingree wrote. 'It's not only callous and cruel, it defies logic,' she added.
Lucy Hochschartner, the climate and clean energy director for Maine Conservation Voters, said long-term the state should continue to invest in clean energy and double down on efficiency measures to decrease energy costs for Mainers but that LIHEAP is what Mainers need right now.
'I can bet that the people who decided to cut the entire LIHEAP staff have never struggled to pay their heating bill,' Hochschartner said. 'In Maine, it doesn't matter who you voted for — we know that everyone deserves to stay warm during our long winters, and this is the program that makes that possible.'
Federal cuts aside, the program in Maine is already strained.
During a meeting of the Legislature's Government Oversight Committee on Friday, Daniel Brennan, director of Maine State Housing Authority, told lawmakers that the state has seen an increase in applications for LIHEAP over the last five years — from 45,000 in 2019 to 70,000 in the past year — with no corresponding increase to its federal grant that provides the administrative dollars to hire enough staff to meet demand. The grant has remained at about $40 million.
'This year has been a particularly difficult year because this year is the first year where we've had to face this head on, where we simply don't have the money that the [community action programs] need to meet the higher demand of the applications,' Brennan said.
The program puts out $675,000 on average per week, providing between 1,200 and 1,300 households with fuel assistance, he said, but a backlog of applicants remain.
'The system is maxed out,' Brennan said.
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