COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) - Standing in front of stacks of insulation likely destined for a poor family’s home, Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy decried proposed federal cuts to heating and weatherization programs Monday, saying good heating is a matter of life or death.
Leahy and leaders of several Vermont anti-poverty programs said at a news conference at a weatherization service center that proposed federal budget cuts by Republican President Donald Trump would leave many out in the cold.
“There isn’t an area, a program, a staff person or any of the 23,000 we serve who won’t be touched and experience devastation of their services due to this budget,” said Jan Demers, executive director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity.
Demers said her organization would lose nearly 40 percent of its funding under the cuts. They still don’t know what other programs may be cut, she said, but cuts that have been specified in Trump’s budget would nonetheless decimate her agency, she said.
Community Services Block Grants, which distribute money to poverty-fighting organizations; the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps people who can’t work pay heating bills; and Department of Energy funding to help prepare homes for cold winters are all cut from the federal budget under Trump’s plan.
“These draconian budget cuts pose a real threat to the health and safety of Vermonters everywhere,” said Bobby Arnell, director of Vermont’s Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helped about 21,000 Vermont households this winter. Arnell said that the program has been successful because it’s made families who receive help more stable and healthier.
Todd Alexander, a disabled Coast Guard veteran said his furnace has been repaired and he has received about 125 gallons of heating fuel a year through the programs.
“Heat is a necessity, not a luxury in Vermont,” Alexander said.
Leahy, who is the vice chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which is key to shaping the federal budget, said the committee will not accept cuts to heating assistance programs.
“LIHEAP and weatherization. They’re easy words, but think about what they do. It means you don’t have to choose between food and heat,” Leahy said.
The committee acts in a bipartisan way and will take a lot of testimony on the budget, he said.
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