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Governor Approves $20 Million for Heating Assistance
February 7, 2006
Colorado Governor Bill Owens approved $20 million in
emergency heating assistance to low-income families last week.
According to a February 4 story in The Pueblo Chieftain, it was the
first bill that Owens signed in the 2006 legislative session. The
bill, which was co-sponsored in the legislature by Senator Ken
Kester (R - Las Animas) and Representative Bernie Buescher (D -
Grand Junction), will cover the heating bills of an estimated
105,000 low-income families this winter.
Across the country state legislatures are voting to
increase emergency heating assistance to help the poor pay their
utility bills this winter after seeing heating bills double from
previous years. Low-income families pay a much greater percentage of
their disposable income for energy bills, including heating, than
wealthier families. On a national level, Congressional leaders beat
back several attempts sponsored by Democrats to increase federal
support for heating assistance late in 2005, one of them sponsored
by Senator Ken Salazar (D-Westminster).
In addition to heating assistance, Owens also
approved spending $19 million to help those families better
weatherize their homes. Weatherization reduces the need for heating
bill assistance by permanently increasing the energy efficiency of
the homes of low-income families. On a national scale,
Weatherization is this country’s largest, and perhaps most
effective, energy efficiency program. Each year with support from
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 100,000 low-income families
upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes.
Unfortunately, DOE announced yesterday substantial
cuts in funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program in its
2007 budget proposal in Washington D.C. The cuts are enigmatic in
light of the Bush Administration’s first energy budget five years
ago that declared Weatherization to be a priority for DOE’s Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
Meanwhile, DOE begins the process next week of
shutting down the EERE Regional Offices that manage weatherization
and state programs when staff will find out who will be reassigned
and who will be let go. Most of the staffs in the regional office in
Colorado are expected to transfer to DOE’s Golden Field Office,
which will take over administrative duties for the Weatherization
Program in states west of the Mississippi River. On a national
basis, most of the EERE staffs currently working on deployment of
renewable energy and energy efficiency programs are expected to
leave DOE. |
