Federal funding for people who need help paying to heat or cool their homes is in jeopardy. That’s after the Department of Health and Human Services laid off the employees who work on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP.
The program has been around since the early ’80s and here in the Valley, mainly helps residents afford their air conditioning bills during the summer.
Travis Madsen, transportation program director for the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, or SWEEP, joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: So what happened here? Just these folks who worked at Health and Human Services, specifically on this program, they’re just all gone now?
TRAVIS MADSEN: Yeah. The Trump administration laid off all the employees at the Department of Health and Human Services that manage this essential program, providing bill payment assistance to people across the country.
BRODIE: Has anybody said anything about whether these just happen to be, for example, probationary workers, or if this was an attempt to in some way really just shut down this program?
MADSEN: You know, I’m not sure whether this is an accident that the administration just stumbled into or whether they’re intentionally trying to dismantle the program. But either way, I’m concerned that if this program is not functioning, it will put families in Arizona at risk.
BRODIE: Yeah. So let’s talk about that, because as I mentioned, this is a program that helps folks. Specifically in the Valley, it helps people to pay their AC bills. In other parts of the country, it helps pay for heating bills during the summer. What kind of impact have you seen it have here in past years?
MADSEN: So in the last year, Arizona got about $30 million from the federal government to help needy families pay their energy bills. It’s really important assistance, because about 10% of the families in the Phoenix metro area spend more than 10% of their overall income on energy. That’s a pretty severe strain on their budgets.
And if they run into a situation where they can’t pay their bills, it can create a financial emergency or increase the risk that they’re exposed to extreme heat, which is a deadly threat to people’s health. It kills hundreds of people in the Phoenix metro every year.
So having this assistance available helps keep families stable and improves their quality of life. And I think it’s an essential part of the safety net that keeps Arizona a livable place.
BRODIE: It’s worth noting that folks in Arizona, mostly elected officials in Arizona over the past number of years, have been advocating for more money or more equitable division of the money, because traditionally the lion’s share of LIHEAP money has gone gone toward Northeastern states or upper Midwestern states to pay for a heating cost as opposed to Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California to pay for cooling costs, right?
MADSEN: I certainly think that the need for bill assistance in Arizona is much higher than the funding availability has been. And it’s not just LIHEAP that provides this assistance. There’s programs that the utilities and local governments run as well. But the need is greater than the funding available.
But if there’s no staff working in the department,managing LIHEAP, who are you going to go talk to about increasing Arizona’s allocation?
BRODIE: Is it possible that this could be sort of shifted to another division within the Department of Health and Human Services, or maybe just moved to other employees, and the program doesn’t go away?
MADSEN: I hope so. The program was created by Congress in 1981, and President Reagan signed it into law. And it’s, I think, been a bipartisan consensus for more than 50 years that providing energy bill payment assistance is in the best interest of America.
And I hope that this is just going to be a blip in the system and that the department will reorganize the staff in charge of it. But I’m nervous. I think at minimum, this shows some reckless staffing decisions by the Trump administration.
BRODIE: What are you seeing from folks in D.C. about this? Because this is not just something, obviously, that affects Arizona or any particular state. I would imagine many, many states — if not all states — get some kind of funding from LIHEAP for either heating or cooling.
MADSEN: Yeah, this affects every state in the country. And I think Arizona more than most, since it’s the place where I think heat emergencies are the most common. And I think Congress didn’t authorize the program to stop.
So by law, I think it needs to continue. And it’s up to the Trump administration to make sure that it does. And if not, then Congress or the courts need to step in.
BRODIE: You alluded to this, but I want to ask you more specifically about other programs, other ways that folks who need this kind of assistance can potentially get it. And you mentioned that some utilities offer assistance.
Are there other programs either on the state level or maybe even other levels of government that can supplement this or sort of make up for some of the loss of funding from LIHEAP if it in fact is not available?
MADSEN: Yeah. Arizona Public Service and Salt River project both offer low-income rate assistance, as well as programs to help families improve the energy efficiency of their homes. So if you’re adding insulation and improving the air ceiling of your home, it can cost less to keep it cool.
Those are important programs. And, I think the demand for those services is going to be even higher if there’s a disruption in this federal assistance.
BRODIE: What is your level of optimism that this will get resolved and folks, specifically in the Southwest and other parts of the country where it’s getting really hot, pretty soon will have that money?
MADSEN: I don’t know. I’ve never encountered a situation like this, where the entire staff of an important program has been laid off. So it’s outside of my experience. I’m hopeful that it’s an oversight. But I do not know for sure.
