Latest news with #Low-IncomeEnergyAssistanceProgram
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Vermont Congressional delegation demands reinstatement of workers at federal heating assistance program
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Vermont's three-member Congressional delegation says the Trump Administration has 'a moral responsibility' to continue funding the program that helps 26,000 low-income Vermont households pay for heat. Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch and U.S. Representative Becca Balint are calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to 'immediately reinstate' the staff of the Division of Energy Assistance, which manages the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP. LIHEAP helps 6.2 million Americans, including more than 26,000 Vermonters, afford heat and air conditioning. Vermont receives around $20 million in LIHEAP funding annually. Vermont gets additional $28 million to heat low-income households this winter Last week, the Trump administration laid off the entire staff of the $4.1 billion program, stunning state officials who've been waiting to receive millions of dollars in outstanding federal payments. Sanders, Welch and Balint said the firings threaten the continued existence of LIHEAP and would eliminate a 'crucial lifeline' for low-income seniors and families. They said nearly 1 in 4 Vermont households report not being able to pay their energy bills in full and that tariffs on Canadian energy products threaten to drive utility bills even higher. 'The Administration must reinstate DEA staff immediately and continue to disburse Congressionally-appropriated LIHEAP funding to states so that thousands of Vermonters and millions of Americans are not forced to make the unacceptable choice between putting food on the table, paying for prescription drugs, or heating their homes in the winter,' wrote the delegation. The roughly two dozen workers who ran the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program were among roughly 10,000 people fired as part of a dramatic restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services. The program had already delivered the bulk of its aid to the states for this fiscal year but had yet to distribute $378 million. A spokesperson for the agency said it would continue to meet its legal obligations and the reorganization would leave it better positioned to 'to execute on Congress's statutory intent.' The delegation's letter to Kennedy said failing to fund the ;program would put millions of households at risk of energy insecurity. 'The administration has a moral responsibility to disburse LIHEAP funds to states and ensure the program lives up to its promise to help families keep the heat on,' the letter said. 'Being able to heat your home is not a luxury. It is a matter of life and death.' The Associated Press contributed to this 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
North Carolina program helps low-income utility customers pay their bills
Clean energy advocates in North Carolina remain bullish about a Duke Energy initiative to help its poorest customers pay their bills and access weatherization programs, even though participation in its first year fell short of predictions. A side deal Duke struck in 2023 to lessen the blow of its rate hikes, the Customer Assistance Program offers a monthly bill credit of up to $42 for households under a certain income threshold. For example, a family of four making less than roughly $50,000 a year would be eligible. Totaling to about $500 a year, the benefit is 'very significant,' said Carol Hardison, the CEO of Crisis Assistance Ministry in Charlotte. 'That could prevent someone from having to come here,' she said of her group, which helps families in danger of disconnection or eviction. The credit could seem small to a middle-class person, she said, but 'that's half of somebody's rent.' Beginning early 2024, Duke automatically provided the credit to any customers who'd benefited in the prior year from one of two buckets of federal aid: the Crisis Intervention Program, designed to prevent or reverse life-threatening emergencies like utility shutoffs, or the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, which offers one-time payments to ratepayers with overdue heating bills. North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services administers the two funds and has a data-sharing agreement with Duke, which then automatically enrolls customers in its assistance program — a process designed to minimize overhead expenses such as vetting ratepayers for eligibility. The data-sharing agreement has impressed advocates in other states, said Claire Williamson, energy policy advocate with the North Carolina Justice Center. 'They have to deal with a much higher administrative cost,' she said, 'because each place is trying to pay people to check pay stubs and get them enrolled.' When Duke and a host of advocates crafted the Customer Assistance Program, they expected it could reach roughly 124,000 households, the number that benefited from the federal funds in the wake of the pandemic. But far fewer customers accessed that aid in 2024, when the post-COVID burst of recovery money had subsided. While the company has not made public the total number of beneficiaries for the year, filings with regulators and interviews with advocates suggest it was about 55,000. 'The predicted 124,000 was ambitious from the outset,' Williamson said. Still, she stressed the need has not lessened. Indeed, in a report Duke submitted to regulators in 2022, the company estimated 16% of its North Carolina customers, nearly half a million households, were 'arrears struggling' — meaning they were significantly behind on bills. The utility also found that its poorest customers and those who struggled to pay their monthly bills tended to use more kilowatt-hours per square foot than wealthier households. 'A correlation may exist between higher usage and bills and inefficient housing, heating, and cooling systems,' Duke hypothesized in its report. That's why the Customer Assistance Program was also designed to automatically refer eligible customers to weatherization programs. A Duke spokesperson said the utility did do that, but she declined to provide numbers. Over the next two years of the three-year pilot program, the challenge for advocates and Duke is multifold. One item on the list: expanding help beyond those who are receiving federal crisis assistance. 'We cannot underscore enough the impact and benefits [the Customer Assistance Program] has produced for the Duke Energy customers enrolled,' the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association wrote to regulators last fall. 'However, due to significant under-enrollment … using the current process,' the association and others advising Duke 'will renew and increase their efforts to recommend alternative enrollment methodologies.' For instance, Hardison noted that the Crisis Assistance Ministry administers a separate Duke assistance program, the Share the Light Fund, which is fueled by ratepayer and shareholder donations. She suggested her group and other administrators of that fund could also screen participants for the $42 bill credit scheme. 'You have trusted this agency directly with your dollars,' Hardison said. 'What if that agency could also be the entity that puts an application in for the [Customer Assistance Program]?' More work may also be needed to track the program's impact on weatherization and energy efficiency. Nick Wharton is president and CEO of the Charlotte Area Fund. An anti-poverty community action agency, his group deploys money for yet another Duke program, the Helping Home Fund, which finances critical repairs to qualify homes for weatherization assistance. At least this year, he and his colleagues haven't seen an increase in applications to the repair fund. 'There's definitely not a direct relationship between the two,' Wharton said. Finally, there's the current political climate, proving that past progress toward clean energy and climate justice is not necessarily prologue. In 2023, a powerful group of paper mills, pipe foundries, and other industries nearly killed the Customer Assistance Program, in part because they objected to paying a flat monthly fee of $1.70 to help finance it. Because it's reaching fewer households than expected, the initiative will only cost commercial and industrial ratepayers 33 cents each month or less in 2025. But even that doesn't mean the program is safe from attack. 'I'm under no guise that this is inevitable,' Williamson said.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Funds are depleted': Mecklenburg County has less energy assistance available this winter
Many in the Carolinas have been seeing some of the highest energy bills they've ever received. As we've reported, the combination of colder temperatures, higher rates from Piedmont Natural Gas, and the pass-through costs of high natural gas prices is having a big impact on neighbors. Mecklenburg County's Department of Community Resources has been fielding hundreds of calls and applications every week from folks looking for help. Chanda Martin, the program coordinator for the county's energy assistance programs, said the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, which is specifically available only during the winter, is in high demand. 'They're on fixed income, you have low-income residents, that's a shock to the system,' she said. 'It's here to help them and it's a huge benefit.' The Crisis Intervention Program helps customers experiencing heating/cooling emergencies with a final notice or past due utility bill, but it's unavailable because all of its funds have already been allocated. 'We assisted a lot of families, so the funds are depleted,' Martin said. According to the department, the funding was used up before the end of November. The funds usually become available each July, but it was earliest Mecklenburg County has ever used all its state allocation. Staff said the funding was smaller than they'd seen in previous years and the need over the summer was unusually high. As for this winter, Martin encourages anyone who might be eligible to apply before the program ends on March 31. To be eligible, you must be at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. So far, she said the department has received 3,346 applications and processed more than 2,300. These programs are state-funded and available in every North Carolina County, more information is available here. Both Duke Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas have their own programs to assist low-income customers or customers who have fallen behind on their bills. North Carolina also recently launched Energy Saver NC, a program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to help low and moderate-income households reduce their energy bills by making their homes more energy efficient. The DEQ is still taking applications on the program's website. The agency said in a statement: 'DEQ is closely watching any federal actions that may change the operations of the program. As of this time, funding through these programs remains available.' It's not just your natural gas bill going up either. Duke Energy says it saw record demand during a recent cold snap, and the Environmental Defense Fund says that will be reflected in your bill. The EDF says Duke relies on gas-powered plants, and customer bills include the fuel they use to generate electricity. Duke responded saying that residential customers had rate drops at the start of the year. 'The only reason prices are going down now is because bills jumped last year to pay for the cold winter the year before,' said Will Scott with the Environmental Defense Fund. 'So again, we're just on a roller coaster here, and it's coming down from historic highs, but it's gonna go back up again next year, because we had a cold winter this year.' Duke Energy plans to build several new natural gas powered-plants and add turbines to existing facilities within the next 10 years. The utility says that buildout is necessary to ensure the Carolinas have reliable power all the time. (VIDEO: Duke Energy at center of class action lawsuit over data breach)
