AUGUSTA – Republican lawmakers are pressing their call for a special legislative session to transfer $10 million in surplus funds to Maine’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

GOP leaders at the State House have urged Democrats and the Legislature’s two independents to back emergency legislation allowing lawmakers to work during a special session without salary and expenses.

The costs of a special session have been pegged at about $40,000 a day, with legislators receiving $170 or so per day.

Republicans, who are in the minority in the state Senate and House of Representatives, say if lawmakers were to forgo special session salary and expenses, taxpayers would save $31,620 a day.

“A $170 check is not worth Maine families being cold this winter,” House Republican leader Josh Tardy of Newport, said in a statement this week. “If opponents of a special session to invest surplus funds into LIHEAP are concerned with costs, they should join Republicans in support of saving the taxpayers over $31,000 each day a special session is held.”

Democratic Gov. John Baldacci has said calling lawmakers back to Augusta is possible but not a certainty.

“It has to be something I can’t do without them,” he said Tuesday.

Ranking Democrats in the House and Senate have been noncommittal as an administration review of options continues.

“There is no time to wait for a December session, reports from a task force or action from the U.S. Congress,” Senate Republican leader Carol Weston of Montville said in a statement. “The time to act is now, and Maine’s citizens should not have to pay for that action.”

On the congressional level, some Republicans have been demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call the U.S. House of Representatives back into session to vote on an energy bill that includes an increase in domestic oil drilling.

Democratic critics say Republicans have blocked bills aimed at dealing with market speculators and forcing oil companies to drill in areas they already have leased.

Nationally, millions of poor and elderly people on fixed incomes rely on heating assistance through the government’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help pay their bills.

Congress appropriated $2.57 billion for low-income home energy assistance last winter.

MaineHousing, the state housing agency, allocates funds from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to 10 community action agencies that disburse it to residents who make less than 60 percent of the average state income. For a family of four, the cutoff in eligibility for LIHEAP is $38,101.