Do Not Cut Liheap

Floor Speech

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) for 5 minutes.

Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, I come before the House today to talk about a critically important program that I think all Americans need to know about which is hanging in the balance as we approach this continuing resolution. The program I am here to talk about is the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, also known as LIHEAP.

LIHEAP is a program commonly believed to be an income-support program. But actually, Madam Speaker, it is not an income-support program. LIHEAP, which provides energy to low-income families, heating oil, things like that, is actually a health program and a program that is designed to make sure that citizens do not have to choose between heat and eat. You do not have to choose between dinner and a warm room. Many of us who are from places like Minnesota, my own home State, but also Michigan, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, add to that many others--Montana, many others, and even some States that we think of as warm-weather States, but in the winter can get cold too--really, people depend upon these programs to really survive.

In my own State, if LIHEAP is cut, many people will simply go without. And of course I have statistics here, Madam Speaker; but rather than talk about statistics, I want to talk about a man who lived in my district who was actually not a LIHEAP recipient but was eligible for the program and didn't use it. He didn't have enough money for his heat, so what he did was he kind of jerry-rigged some space heaters, and he kind of made due. And this caused a fire, Madam Speaker, which resulted in his death.

And when I looked up what really happens, how often people die from space heaters, the numbers are not always consistent, but upwards of 32 percent of all home fires are because of space heaters; and about 75 percent of all home-fire deaths are due to space heaters, deaths.

People die when this happens because they don't have the energy assistance that they need. And our Congress, right now, under Republican majority, is talking about cutting this program even more.

Now, you think about a winter like this one, Madam Speaker, where there have been record snowfalls in many places around our country, and it's been cold since October in Minnesota. And the fact is that programs that provide LIHEAP funding are already running out of money. And if they were drawn back to 2008 spending levels, we would have run out of LIHEAP funding in January. In Minnesota it really does not warm up until around April. And so this is terrible.

Madam Speaker, let me tell you, if you look at young people, kids, statistics show that if a family does not have to put a bunch of money into heating the home the child's diet improves, and the kid has enough to eat before he goes to school, which means that that little girl or that little boy can sit in the classroom without their stomach growling and can actually pay attention to the lesson that's going on because their family has some home energy assistance.

Our seniors are poor. It's about the prescription, or it's about the heated room.

Madam Speaker, it's not right to tell Americans that the wealthiest and most well-to-do among us get their tax break extended, and the poorest among us, well, they can just go get another blanket. That's wrong. We're failing a moral test of our Nation when we do things like this.

Madam Speaker, I want to raise this issue that we consider what we are doing to our society. It's not welfare; it's not income support. It is a health program. It is a health program designed to make sure that Americans don't freeze to death in their own homes. It is a health program designed to make sure that Americans don't have to make awful decisions about medication, about food, and things like this. It is a health program. And it's a program that has done countless amounts of good for many, many people that helps seniors, that helps children.

I'm very proud, Madam Speaker, as I close, to quote a man from my State of Minnesota. His name was Hubert H. Humphrey, and he said, The moral test of a Nation is how it treats people in the dawn of life, our children; people in the twilight of life, our seniors; and people in the shadows of life, the poor and underprivileged.

If we cut low-income energy assistance, we've failed that moral test.

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