Heating aid bill fails in Senate
Plan would have added $2.9b for poor households
WASHINGTON -- A measure to substantially increase funding for the federal home heating program failed in the Senate yesterday, with opponents deflecting arguments that soaring energy prices could force the poor to choose between heat and food.
Senators voted, 54 to 43, in favor of a proposal to boost the fiscal 2006 budget for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to $5.1 billion from $2.2 billion. But that was six votes short of the 60-vote majority needed to approve new spending not coupled with equivalent spending cuts.
Northern senators who pushed for increased spending for the program, led by Senators Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, argued that the surge in fuel costs will be crippling to low-income families.
People could have to ''choose between keeping the heat on, putting food on the table, or buying much needed prescription drugs," Collins said. ''No family should need to make such terrible choices."
Reed cited estimates that those who heat their homes with fuel oil will need $1,600 this winter, up $380, while the cost of using natural gas for heating could rise to $1,400.
The Senate also defeated, 53 to 46, an alternative put forward by Senate Budget Committee chairman Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, that would have increased spending on the program by about $1.3 billion while paying for the increase with an across-the-board cut of almost 1 percent in programs included in a $146 billion spending bill covering health, education, and labor programs.
Gregg's amendment needed only a majority of 51 votes because it did not increase spending. Opponents argued that even a 1 percent cut could be harmful to programs already squeezed by tight budgets.
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said education grants for low-income children would be cut by $118 million, and Head Start would lose $63 million.
