Louisiana gets hot. Brutally hot in the summer. In 2023, New Orleans had about 20 sweaty nights when the temperature never dipped below 80 degrees. Ours is the kind of heat that requires air conditioning to sleep, and it often feels like we need AC just to breathe.
Imagine you’re already struggling with the high cost of living. Your rent has spiked, your grocery bill has spiked even more, it’s summer in Louisiana, and because you can’t afford your $350 electricity bill, you receive a disconnection notice. How do you survive?
President Donald Trump’s administration has fired the 10-person staff of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.
That’s a question about 6 million American families will be asking now that President Donald Trump’s administration has fired the 10-person staff of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.
A bipartisan effort to protect America’s most vulnerable households, LIHEAP has been around since 1981, but now it’s one of the many federal programs that is seriously threatened in the latest round of stunning layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While the dollars are dispensed to residents by locally trusted community action agencies, LIHEAP is a federal program with experienced administrators who ensure the funds are put to best use. Again, every one of the program’s administrators has been fired.
Tens of thousands of elderly or disabled residents and households with children depend on lifesaving support from LIHEAP to stay safe in Louisiana’s extreme summers. Our state receives roughly $53 million annually to help people manage electric and gas bills.
LIHEAP is fundamentally about helping vulnerable Americans pay their home energy bills. But it’s much more than that. Energy costs are housing costs, and when a family falls behind on utilities, the effects can cascade, leading to the loss of housing, food, health care and other essentials. Unfortunately, disconnections for inability to pay are already on the rise, causing illness and death. Between June and August 2023, extreme heat in Louisiana cost 25 people their lives, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
I run the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a policy organization in Louisiana working to ensure everyone has access to the energy they need to thrive. Residents threatened with disconnection call us year-round, and we direct them to LIHEAP, which helps them make ends meet when they are forced to choose between food and medication or keeping the lights on. There’s a good reason LIHEAP is a health program.
But LIHEAP isn’t just about paying bills. The program has also provided millions of dollars each year to help weatherize homes. Many of our homes are ill-equipped to keep occupants safe, healthy and comfortable during July’s heat dome or January’s polar vortex, and LIHEAP weatherization funds help reduce wasted energy, which saves us all money in the long run. Weatherization includes sealing up leaks around doors and windows, installing insulation and making air-conditioning systems more efficient. The Weatherization Assistance Program, which is largely funded by LIHEAP, is an investment that puts money directly into homes, reducing the need for bill assistance in the future. To paraphrase the old parable, give a family cash assistance and they can pay their bills that month; weatherize that family’s home, and they’ll be able to afford their bills year-round.
Utilities around the country also depend on LIHEAP revenue to cover their costs when their customers can’t pay. If utilities aren’t able to meet their operating costs, then they’ll need to turn to their regulators and ask for rate increases, and rate increases raise everyone’s bills. This means that LIHEAP has benefited every American household for nearly 45 years. You’ve benefited from it, even if you’ve never applied for help. This administration keeps using the word “efficiency,” but this appears to be yet another cut that make things generally less efficient and hurts not only the most vulnerable people who apply to LIHEAP, but all of us.
It’s been surprising that the LIHEAP staff being fired hasn’t led to broad objections from regulators and utilities nationwide. Utilities have historically been very outspoken advocates for LIHEAP and have joined consumer advocates and community action agencies in annually lobbying Congress for more funds. That’s because the program has always been underfunded. But according to a piece by the Energy and Policy Institute, since the firing of the LIHEAP staff was announced April 1, utilities have largely stayed mum or refused to comment either on the impacts it will have on their customers or on their own bottom lines. It is puzzling and concerning that some of the most powerful voices on this issue are staying silent.
Temperatures in some part of Louisiana reached 89 degrees Thursday, and as spring gives way to the even more intense heat of summer, I worry about the tens of thousands of Louisianans who are already barely making ends meet and can’t access LIHEAP funds. These layoffs and federal cost-cutting measures are dangerous, and every legislator, regulator and utility has a responsibility to protect programs like LIHEAP, a program that is a clear example of how government efficiency and “cost saving” is already being achieved, even as millions of Americans are helped.