Arizona low-income households get less federal help with energy costs than in most other states

Arizona gets less money than it needs to cool residents’ homes from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. That’s according to a new report on the federal program. The data shows that broadly, colder-weather states tend to get more money to cover heating costs than warmer-weather ones get to pay for AC.

According to the data, Arizona has one of the biggest disparities in the country between the amount low-income households spend on home energy and the amount of federal help they get.

And this is happening as the Trump administration fired everyone working in the office that manages LIHEAP last year.

Ashley Ward is director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University, which compiled the report. She spoke with The Show about this data and efforts to bring parity to the funding. Ward started with some of her key takeaways from this report.

Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Duke University

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Handout

Full conversation

ASHLEY WARD: The main key takeaway is that warm weather states have systematically received less funding relative to their need than cold weather states with the current LIHEAP formulation. This is important because LIHEAP was originally established primarily to supplement heating in cold weather states.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen a lot of movement on how LIHEAP is funded in nearly 20 years. Actually, even though the population has grown and need has grown, LIHEAP remains the most significant, largest federal government program designed to address energy affordability that we have. And so far it has not only been underfunded, but systematically has underfunded cooling. And we're seeing every year this become a greater and greater demand.

MARK BRODIE: Well, it's interesting you say that because it seems as though more and more parts of the country are starting to deal with extreme heat. Obviously, you know, here in Phoenix we've been dealing with this for many, many years, but there are parts of the country that have not dealt with extreme heat before that are starting to.

Does that make it maybe more important or maybe even more likely that the LIHEAP formula gets adjusted somewhat to deal with heat?

WARD: Yes. I mean, you know, at the same time that we're seeing what you're pointing out, which is more people being exposed to higher temperatures than we've had in the past, we are also seeing, even in those that have historically been warm, we are reaching limits of what we call safe fan use indoors. And this is certainly the case in Arizona.

I'm sure you're aware of this, is that there is a certain threshold at which it is no longer safe to not have air conditioning in your home. And so in those cases, particularly in those cases, especially in those cases, we need people to have access to affordable cooling.

But you take that as happening certainly across the Sun Belt, and particularly in the Southwest side of the Sun Belt. But as you just mentioned, all over the country we're seeing higher temperatures and even in areas that haven't historically been as hot as, say, below the Sun Belt. I mean, we see what's happened in Oregon with the heat dome, for example, but we see happening all over the country people who, you know, have not typically had to deal with this issue or starting to deal with it.

And in many cases, they don't have air conditioning in their home, or the air conditioning that they have is insufficient to adequately cool. So programs like LIHEAP are critical because they pay for heating and cooling, but they also pay for things like weatherization, which is also important.

BRODIE: At the same time, I mean, we're also seeing major winter storms. I mean, it kind of seems like it raises the question, is the pie itself big enough? Is there enough money to really go around to help, you know, places that are dealing with extreme heat now deal with that, but also at the same time, not leave out people who are in places where it's very, very cold?

WARD: Oh, absolutely. The pie is currently not big enough. Currently, if you think about the way it's measured, right. So the LIHEAP program was designed to measure energy expenditures, what's called LIHEE, low income housing energy expenditures. So that's need, basically. So the need is calculated on a state by state basis. And right now, nationally, LIHEAP only actually provides funds to cover 20% of eligible population.

So it is critically and systemically underfunded. That is true. So the pie is not big enough. What's also happening, though, is even within that limited pie, a majority of those funds, something like 80% of those funds goes toward heating and not cooling. And we've seen over recent years that the biggest trend in increased use is actually a need for cooling assistance.

BRODIE: Well, and when you talk about imbalance, it looked like, based on your report, that Arizona was either at or very close to the top of the list in terms of states where residents need help and aren't getting it.

WARD: Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. That's true. So what we have done is, you know, and I also want to just point out there have been periods where we have increased LIHEAP allocation. Like, for example, recently during COVID and then during the 2008 financial crisis, we increased allocations to LIHEAP. So there have been points in time where we have temporarily increased how much money we put into LIHEAP. But then it goes back to that original formula.

So the two senators from Arizona have proposed a new kind of formula in the LIHEAP Parity Act, which is what we were testing in this report. And that formula is asking to recalculate LIHEAP that makes it more in line with directly tied to energy burdens, which is the intent of the program.

Now, when you do that, it does, of course, increase the budget, overall budget allocation that's needed. But I just point out that there have been moments where we have increased the budget and we roll it back out of those times of need. And I know that the sticker shock, you know, of the increased investment might be a disincentive for people to do it.

However, we provided in this report a very pragmatic approach to implementing LIHEAP that's more in line with need at each, in each state over a three to five year period. So what was really interesting though, is even the first year, even just increasing the amount of LIHEAP $459 million in year one, which is a very small amount of the overall funding, would get you almost to parity with states.

BRODIE: Do you get the sense that we will get to, or maybe we're already there at some kind of tipping point where enough of the country is routinely experiencing extreme heat that policymakers will realize, hey, look, we need to do something about this. Like, this is a situation that is no longer sustainable.

WARD: Well, that is my hope and what I work for every single day. You know, certainly one of the ways I think that the conversation needs to shift is to talk about heat. Yes, we should absolutely be concerned about the morbidity and mortality, who gets sick and who dies from heat. The moral argument there is unprecedented, right.

But we also have to expand this table a bit and we have to bring in, for example, the private sector. I mean, I remind people all the time, who is it that employs people in high heat occupations. That's largely the private sector. Who owns our energy systems? That's the private sector, too. And our health systems, also the private sector.

So there is an economic cost to heat that is born throughout our society and across sector. So it is critical, in my opinion, that we start talking about heat for what it truly is, which is a threat to the economic security of our communities in addition to a threat to our health.

And so I like to think of this as well-being, right. Well-being includes not just measurable health outcomes, but also social and economic well-being as well.