Tough heating season foreseen Northern Maine costs for fuel up $70 million

Mainers could be in for a cold cash-poor winter, according to a new report predicting that families in the northern part of the state will pay an additional $70 million to heat their homes this season.

That’s an extra $309 on average for each of the area’s 240,000-plus families, according to the study prepared by the House Committee on Government Reform and released Thursday afternoon by U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine.

“It confirms what we already believed would be true: Mainers are going to see terrible cost increases for heating their homes this winter,” said Michaud, who requested the report, which focuses on his 2nd Congressional District. “Congress has to do everything possible to address this health, safety and economic issue.”

In some ways, an extra $309 – based on last winter’s fuel consumption – is the good news. If this winter is especially cold, that extra cost could rise to $155 million – or an extra $650 per family, according to the report.

The study’s release comes amid increased pressure from the Maine congressional delegation and the governor’s office to increase the amount of federal funding to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly referred to as LIHEAP.

Last month, Congress failed to pass a bill that included $2 billion more for home heating subsidies. It also failed to pass a bill to add $3 billion to cover the increases in home heating fuels since Hurricane Katrina.

“Congress simply cannot shirk its duty to ensure that Americans can afford to heat their homes this winter,” U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said this week. To press the case, Snowe and U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., sent a letter to colleagues asking them to support full funding for LIHEAP when Congress reconvenes in mid-December.

In the letter, Snowe laments the fact that on four occasions a majority of senators voted to increase heating subsidies for low-income families, but failed to muster the two-thirds vote needed for passage.

Fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins also has pushed for more federal funding for the program.

In the 2nd District, according to Michaud’s report, the lack of funding for LIHEAP could cut out 44,000 eligible families.

Gov. John Baldacci on Thursday also stepped up his efforts, urging other governors in the Northeast to call on members of Congress to reconsider their opposition to increased heating assistance funding.

At a press conference with Michaud and U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, Baldacci said the federal government should do more to help Maine’s low-income residents pay home heating bills this winter.

In a letter to other governors in the Northeast, Baldacci wrote that the region faces a major challenge this winter with heating fuel prices at record highs.

“The elderly, the disabled and the working poor who are our neighbors face the frightening prospect of entering winter with too little heating fuel and unable to secure what they need to be safe and warm,” Baldacci wrote in his letter. “They need our concerted efforts to assure that no one will freeze this winter.”