Snowe, Collins continue to support energy funds

WASHINGTON – Continuing their efforts to support full funding of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are urging Senate leaders to back their request for $600 million in additional emergency LIHEAP funds in a supplemental spending bill for fiscal year 2001.

Earlier the senators contacted President-elect Bush to urge him to request $1.65 billion in funding for LIHEAP and an additional $300 million in emergency funds for fiscal year 2002. They also asked Bush to support $1.65 billion in advance funding for fiscal year 2003.

In letters Friday to Sens. Trent Lott of Mississippi and Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Snowe, Collins and more than a dozen Northeast senators asked for their leaders’ support of $600 million in emergency supplemental spending for the current fiscal year.

“We are hopeful that you will work with us to support additional emergency LIHEAP funding for fiscal year 2001 in a supplemental funding package,” the senators stated in their letters. “This winter, many low-income American families are grappling with record low temperatures and persistently high fuel costs. The need for LIHEAP aid has grown substantially during the last year alone – for example, both Maine and Ohio had 13,000 more applications for assistance this winter than at the same time last year.”

Snowe and Collins were joined in their request by more than a dozen senators from states represented by the Senate Northeast-Midwest Coalition.