Making Available Funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program
MAKING AVAILABLE FUNDS FOR THE LOW-INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - March 15, 2006)
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Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favor of S. 2320, legislation regarding the low-income home energy assistance program that we call by the acronym of LIHEAP.
I believe that this is a good bill that will help all Americans, both in warm weather States and in cold weather States, but it will be particularly helpful to those in the warm weather States like Texas and places where summers can be difficult as the winters are in the Northern States.
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 which this House passed, the other body passed and the President signed recently, included $1 billion for LIHEAP for fiscal year 2007. The moneys were offset by savings elsewhere in the titles written by the Energy and Commerce Committee, which I have the privilege to chair.
The bill before us today spends the funds this year and splits the funds equally between regular and contingency funds. Mr. Speaker, I support this approach because the increase in regular funds in the bill would allow significantly more LIHEAP funds to flow to the warm weather States to help with cooling costs this summer.
This has happened only once before in the 1980s. For Texans, which is the State that I come from, this will mean an additional $38 million this year, almost doubling Texas's LIHEAP funds.
Overall, the funding increases in the bill before us will help both the warm weather States and the cold weather States in the winter. Warm weather States in the summer and the cold weather States in the winter. This is a good solution for all States, both warm and cool; and I hope that we will support the bill.
We do have an unusual parliamentary procedure, Madam Speaker, that I think we need to bring before the body. The bill before us has already passed the Senate. If we pass it with no amendments, it will go to the President for his signature.
The supplemental bill, which we have been debating until several minutes ago, also has some LIHEAP funding that is under a different formula mechanism, as I understand it. It is quite possible, if not probable, that that bill is also going to pass.
If it does, we then have a situation which is somewhat murky, but, as best we can tell, whichever bill gets to the President last for his signature will be the bill that dictates the formula funding for this fiscal year. I put that into the RECORD simply because I think all Members of the Chamber need to know that.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I have nothing but the utmost support for Mr. Regula and the appropriators. All the Members, the rank and file Members, the full committee chairman, the subcommittee chairman, but I want to disagree with his premises slightly.
In most cases, a program like LIHEAP is funded from general revenue, and what Mr. Regula said is absolutely true, absolutely true. In this case, the budget reconciliation package for the fiscal year 2007 or the budget reconciliation package that we just passed, the Energy and Commerce Committee, on a bipartisan basis, worked to offset by saving in other areas of our jurisdiction so that we could plus-up LIHEAP by $1 billion. So the LIHEAP money that is before us today in the bill that is coming over from the other body has been paid for.
Now, it is true as the gentleman from Ohio said that that money was supposed to be spent in fiscal year 2007, but it is also true that we need additional funds for 2006. And we are going to need additional funds, in all likelihood, in the warm weather States this summer, because of the expected heat. We have already had a record heat wave in Texas 2 weeks ago. It was 95 degrees. I will pledge to Mr. Regula and Mr. Lewis and Mr. Obey and all the folks, the appropriators, that if we get the will of our leadership, I am willing to engage in another reconciliation package to find offsets for next year. I think that is only fair so that we help our appropriators.
But we have a bill before us that if we affirmatively pass it like the other body has, it is going to go to the President's desk. It is going to be signed. There will be additional funds to help both the cold weather and the warm weather States. And I would hope that we would, while we have nothing but respect for Mr. Regula, that we would oppose his motion to oppose this bill. Pass it. Send it to the President so that we could get his signature and allocate these funds to the most needy of Americans in both the warm weather and cold weather States.
I ask for a yea vote.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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