This story originally Appears in Grist It is part of Climate desk collaboration.
The summer of 2021 was brutal to residents of the Pacific Northwest. Regional cities have broken temperature records, from Portland, Oregon to Kiraute, Washington Several degrees. In Washington, when the shearing heat wave settled in the state, 125 people died from heat-related illnesses such as strokes and heart attacks, making it the most deadly weather event in the state’s history.
Authorities have made significant changes to the state’s energy assistance program as they recognized the disproportionate impact of heatwaves on low-income and barren people who have no access to air conditioners. Since the early 1980s, states, tribes and territories have received annual funding to help low-income people pay their electricity bills and install energy efficiency upgrades through the Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Congress will doll out funds for the program, as well as funds from the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, to the state in the late fall. Until the summer of 2021, the initiative provided heating assistance primarily during the cold winter months of Washington. However, that year, The program has been expanded Covers cooling costs.
Last year, Congress allocated $4.1 billion for the effort, and HHS paid 90% of the funds. However, the program is currently at risk.
Earlier this month, HHS, led by Chief Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., fired 10,000 employees, including around 12 people who were tasked with running the liheap. The agency was supposed to send another $378 million this year, but those funds are now stuck in federal funding without staff needing it to pay.
Liheap helps around 6 million people survive the frozen winters and fierce summers. Many face greater risks now that this year’s warm season already brings unusually high temperatures. Phoenix residents are expected to have them First 100 degrees high Anytime now.
“We’re seeing a really warm weather state in real life with the funds needed to help people in the extreme heat,” said one HHS employee who worked on the Liheap program and was recently fired. They said losing people who ran the program was “absolutely catastrophic.” Agency staff have become extremely important in increasingly unstable weather patterns across the country as they helped states and tribes understand the flexibility to effectively serve people.
In a typical year, when Congress allocates the Liheap fund, HHS distributes the money in time for the cold months. The state and other entities then make critical decisions about how much they spend in the winter and how much they can save in the summer.
The need for LIHEAP funds is always greater than what is available. Only about one person in five households that meet program eligibility requirements will receive funds. As a result, states often run out of money by summer. At least a quarter of Liheap’s grants have run out of money at some point in the year, the former employee said.
