Energy summit in works

The focus is on aid, awareness

Fearing that soaring home heating costs could severely impact many residents this winter, a Revere city councilor is calling for an energy summit in the city.

Ward 4 Councilor George J. Rotondo said the meeting would educate residents how to obtain fuel assistance and raise awareness about the urgent need he sees to expand aid and the number of people who can receive it.

"As far as I'm concerned, middle-class taxpayers need assistance," Rotondo said. "We are bailing out an industry for something they did to themselves, but we can't take care of our own," he added, referring to Wall Street. "That's ridiculous."

Home fuel costs are a focus of national concern. According to the office of US Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, home heating oil prices could exceed $4 this winter, which could mean a bill as high as $4,000 for average families.

Markey, who represents Revere, played a key role in a successful congressional effort to increase federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program this fiscal year to $5.1 billion from $2.57 billion last year.

On Rotondo's motion, the City Council on Sept. 22 voted unanimously to request Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino to schedule a fuel assistance summit with representatives from community organizations involved in assistance, along with the city's state and federal legislative delegation.

In a letter to Rotondo, Ambrosino initially responded that the subject would be covered in a meeting on fuel assistance Markey's office had scheduled with municipal officials, which Ambrosino attended Monday in Melrose.

But in an interview Wednesday, Ambrosino said, "I'm happy to have a summit," and added if Rotondo picked a date, he would send out letters of invitation.

Ambrosino said he shared the concern about the hardship people could face this winter trying to stay warm.

"Even the increased federal money is not going to be enough," he said. "It's insufficient to protect people through an entire cold winter. This is going to be a very difficult winter for a lot of folks."

Rotondo said the summit would inform residents how to get help, adding, "I don't think the average working-class person knows where to go to get assistance when they need it."

He also wants the summit to highlight the urgency of the problem and the need for more federal and state attention.

Through his job as a registered nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Rotondo said he sees firsthand the struggles high fuel costs are causing people.

"I hear people's stories every day," he said. "People cannot afford to pay for gas at the gas tank. How are they going to afford the gas in their house?"

Robert Repucci, executive director of Community Action Programs Inter City Inc., an agency that dispenses fuel assistance to residents in Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop, thinks a Revere energy summit is a good idea.

"It's very appropriate, and I think the timing is right," said Repucci, who plans to participate if asked.

Repucci said he applauded the efforts of Markey in helping secure the additional federal money. But he cautioned it would only go so far, noting that the need for assistance is likely to grow if the economy continues its downturn and fuel costs rise.

Repucci is particularly concerned with the large number of people facing the potential shutdown of their utilities because of unpaid fuel bills from last winter.

"There are hundreds of people from Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop that have balances in excess of $1,100. How are these going to get paid?" he said.

In addition to more funding for fuel assistance, Rotondo wants to see expanded eligibility. Each state sets its own eligibility limit based on federal criteria. Currently, people earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty guideline, which would be $41,400 for a family of four, are eligible in Massachusetts.

Repucci said under new federal standards included with the recent congressional appropriation, the state could increase its eligibliity limit to as high as 300 percent of the federal poverty guideline. He said he would support moving to that figure, though he noted that the more people who qualify for aid, the less each household would receive.

Rotondo's motion also requests that the council and mayor ask the city's state and federal delegations to seek legislation "to increase fuel assistance income limits to 300 percent of federal poverty guidelines or greater."

"We need to raise the bar to allow more people into the assistance fold," he said.

"I think we ought to leave that to the experts at the state level who know [the state's needs] and are best in a position to calibrate how much additional eligibility should be allowed," Ambrosino said.

Phil Hailer, spokesman for the state's Department of Housing and Economic Development, which oversees the fuel assistance program, said in an e-mail, "We are currently examining options in terms of possible program eligibility expansion." He said the state had just received word of the additional federal funding, "and we have to assess how those funds should be disbursed."