"A federal program that helps low-income households pay for heating and cooling costs is in limbo."
"As a particularly cold winter sputters to an end, Pennsylvania’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps residents pay their heating bills, closed on Friday—several weeks earlier than expected.
Funding for LIHEAP has dried up because federal workers who administer the program were recently laid off by the Trump administration, said Elizabeth Marx, the executive director at the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, a legal advocacy group that assists people struggling to pay their utility costs. About $19 million has yet to be sent to the state.
The state Public Utility Commission sent a letter this week to Congress about the shortfall and called the fund a “lifeline for Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable households.”
Marx said the delay in federal funds couldn’t happen at a worse time.
April is known as the start of “termination season,” she said, when her organization sees an uptick in the number of households whose electricity or gas is turned off. State regulations prohibit winter disconnections before April 1."
Kiley Bense reports for Inside Climate News April 19, 2025.
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