As winter approaches, the 70 percent of Connecticut households that use oil heat face record high oil prices. The very real threat of freezing to death can force families to use unsafe means to heat their homes.
According to the nonprofit Operation Fuel, the average low-income Connecticut household experiences a $1,100 gap between energy costs and what it can afford to pay. A portion of the gap is filled by the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Around 86,000 Connecticut residents received heating oil assistance from LIHEAP last winter.
But these vital energy assistance programs are under assault on a number of fronts.
While President Bush is threatening to cut the federal program by 44 percent, the distribution of those funds in Connecticut is in doubt.
The Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association—a trade group of Connecticut oil dealers—sent a letter to its 530 members urging them not to participate in the state Energy Assistance Program.
Why is it doing this?
Its reason is that sales to the state for heating assistance are made at a slight discount from retail prices. Oil dealers are refusing to participate in the program if they cannot receive full profit, leaving the heating aid program in danger.
Another attack on home heat assistance programs has used racist attacks against undocumented immigrants.
Contradicting federal laws prohibit states from directly providing home energy assistance to undocumented immigrants, while also prohibiting agencies that distribute aid from verifying citizenship status.
On Sept. 25, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sided with racist anti-immigrant groups and ruled that the state can require social security numbers of applicants to “prevent fraud.”
Under the guise of combating “fraud,” the new policy will deny aid to undocumented people and thousands of documented residents without social security numbers for various reasons.
The real fraud is the capitalist system that lets thousands go without the basic right to home heat and light, while oil companies make record profits and hundreds of billions are spent on imperialist war.
