U.S. anxiety about staying warm this winter spreads

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania -- American homeowners already pinched by high food and gas prices have grown increasingly anxious about staying warm this winter.

At state assistance offices and at community organizations, phones are ringing off the hook as homeowners and renters seek help with what are expected to be punishing heating bills. Lawmakers and governors from Alaska to Maine are watching the gap between surging need in their states, and assistance that may or may not be coming from Washington.

Aid agencies fear they may have to turn more people away, or give less cash assistance to individual families.

"People are very worried about this winter," said Ann Heidenreich, executive director of the nonprofit Community Energy Services in Canton, New York. "We're not going to deal with all that needs to be done, there's no way. We're going to have to deal with emergencies this winter."

The Energy Information Administration, a statistical division of the U.S. Department of Energy, projected last month that natural gas and heating oil will be at record highs this winter. In some cases, home heating oil, propane and kerosene is already twice as high as it was two years ago, meaning that a dollar of federal aid will not travel nearly as far this winter.

Making things worse is an economy that has left many more people without jobs, and left state treasuries bare.

Vermont budgeted $4 million to buttress federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funds this winter, but that money has eroded along with the state economy, one official said.

"We were told nothing would be coming from state general fund dollars," said Richard Moffi, from Vermont's Office of Home Heating Fuel Assistance.

In Congress, members from the Northeast pressed unsuccessfully this summer to add billions to the LIHEAP program, which helps poor families with one-time fuel costs or a heating emergency, like a broken furnace. Last year, the federal government set aside $2.6 billion; this year President George W. Bush has proposed just $2 billion, and it is unclear when Congress will act, or how much it will approve.