AUGUSTA – Congress will consider additional emergency funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program when it reconvenes this month, and members of Maine’s congressional delegation are optimistic additional aid will be approved.

“We were given a commitment by the Senate leadership to get a vote on additional funding for low-income fuel assistance when we return,” Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe said last week. She said it could be as an amendment to an emergency supplemental spending bill or as a stand-alone measure and is optimistic it will pass.

“We will try to find option[s] for funding, for offsets if necessary,” she said. “Some senators are going to recognize the impact that this winter is having on their respective states and how underfunded this program is.”

Snowe said a coalition of senators is pushing for an additional $800 million in emergency supplemental funding for this heating season. She said with the cold winter and higher fuel costs, even that will not be as much as is needed.

“It is such a crisis and hardship for so many Mainers,” she said.

The most recent statistics from the Maine State Housing Authority indicate that more than 32,000 Maine households had been served this season by the LIHEAP program as of Jan. 9, and more than 7,300 applications are still being processed. The average benefit is expected to be $579, or about enough to buy 177 gallons of fuel at the average price of $3.28 a gallon. That’s more than $1 a gallon above last year’s price.

“People are just beside themselves because the cost of heating oil as gone up so rapidly,” said Democratic Rep. Tom Allen of Maine’s 1st District. “People are very, very worried.”

He said that while there is an effort to get another $800 million, his “crystal ball is clouded” on whether additional funds will be appropriated. He said President Bush wanted to kill the program entirely and it took a bipartisan effort in both the House and Senate to get LIHEAP funding approved last month.

“It’s not enough and I know all of us in the Maine delegation will be fighting to get additional funds,” he said.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins pointed out that it took a bipartisan effort to get the funding approved last month, and said it would be a battle again to secure the needed supplemental funding.

“I threaten to bring my colleagues to my hometown of Caribou and have them spend the night in late January and see how cold it is and how much it takes to heat a home,” she said. “I think it would open a few eyes and maybe change a few votes.”

Collins is also concerned about the current LIHEAP rules, which she says are too restrictive and help only “the most poor.” She said many people who should be getting some help are not.

“We have to do better than we are today to help those in need,” she said.

Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud of Maine’s 2nd District said the $409 million increase in LIHEAP aid in the current federal fiscal year – bringing the total LIHEAP budget to $2.6 billion – is far from enough.

“The skyrocketing price of home heating [oil] is stretching household budgets in Maine beyond the breaking point,” he said. “We have a responsibility to make sure that no one is forced to make a choice between putting food on the table, paying for their prescription drugs, or heating their homes this winter.”

Michaud co-sponsored legislation to provide an additional $1 billion in emergency LIHEAP funding on top of that approved last month, but is working to secure any additional funding that may be available this winter.

There is about $20 million in emergency funds for the U.S. leftover from last year, and Michaud wants those funds immediately released.

“While releasing the emergency funding now is something that the president can and must do,” he said, “I will continue to push our House leaders to move a bill that provides more emergency funding for those in need.”

The state has requested $24 million in emergency contingency funds under last month’s appropriation to buy 100 gallons more for each household and pay for the expected increase in applicants. The baseline LIHEAP funding plus $24 million in emergency contingency funds would bring the average benefit to a tank of oil, which is what last year’s benefit could buy.