As summer approaches, federal cuts threaten the program to keep the vulnerable people cool

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of Climate office Cooperation.

The summer of 2021 was brutal for the residents of the Pacific northwest. Cities across the Portland region, Oregon, to Quilyyute, Washington, broke the records of temperature by a few degreesS In Washington, when the high heat wave settled over the state, 125 people were killed by heat-related diseases, such as strokes and heart attacks, making it the deadliest meteorological event in the history of the country.

As employees acknowledged the disproportionate effect of the heat wave on low -income people and restless people who cannot gain access to the air conditioner, they made a decisive change in the state energy aid program. Since the early 1980s, countries, tribes and territories have received funds every year to help people with low incomes pay their electricity bills and to install improvement of energy efficiency through the low-income energy or Liheap energy aid program. The Congress is assigning funds to the program, and the Ministry of Health and Human Services, or HHS, sets it to countries at the end of autumn. Until the summer of 2021, the initiative provides a major assistance for heating during the cold winter months of Washington. But the same year, employees expand the program To cover the cooling costs.

Last year, the Congress appropriated $ 4.1 billion to the efforts, and HHS paid 90 percent of funds. But the program is already in danger.

Earlier this month, HHS, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., fired 10,000 employees, including approximately a dozen or more people loaded with Liheap management. The agency had to send an additional $ 378 million this year, but these funds were already stuck in federal cash registers without the staff needed to move money.

Liheap helps about 6 million people survive the freezing of winters and blisters in the summer, many of whom face more risks now that the warm season of the year has already brought unusually high temperatures. The residents of Phoenix are expected to have their own First 100-degree high Every day now.

“We see the countries of the warm weather that really appear with the funding needed to help people in the summer with exceptional heat,” said one of the HHS employees who worked on the Liheap program and has recently been fired. The loss of the people who run the program is “absolutely devastating,” they said, as agency employees helped countries and tribes understand the flexibility of the program to serve people effectively, the help that has become extremely important in the increasingly haotic meteorological models across the country.

In the typical years, after the Congress assigns Liheap’s funds, HHS distributed money in the fall in time for the more cold months. The countries and other organizations then make critical decisions about how much they spend in the winter and how much they save on the summer.

The need for Liheap’s funds has always been larger than the available ones. Only about 1 in 5 households that meet the eligibility requirements of the program receive funds. As a result, countries often run out of money until summer. At least a quarter of Liheap’s grant recipients are running out of money at a time during the year, the former employee said.