The entire employees are launched in Liheap

The Trump administration has settled all the entire employees running a 4.1 billion dollar program to help low -income families throughout the United States pay their heating and cooling bills.

The shooting processes threaten the low -income home energy aid program, which was created by Congress in 1981 and helps compensate for high facilities bills for about 6.2 million people from Maine to Texas during the freezing winter and hot semester.

“They launched everyone, and no one left to do anything,” said Mark Wolf, Executive Director of the National Energy Assistance Association, who works with the states to secure funding from the program. “Either this was incredibly dirty, or they intend to kill the program completely.”

Workers’ demobilization was part of Monday’s broadcast on Monday about 10,000 employees From the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services on Monday, when Minister of Health Robert F. moved. Kennedy Junior to greatly reorganizing the agency. Nearly 25 employees He was overseeing Energy Help Program, also known as Liheap. Mr. Wolf said he was demobilized.

Congress He agreed 4.1 billion dollars For the 2025 fiscal year program, about 90 percent of this money has already been sent to the states in October to help families struggling with the high heating costs. There are still about 378 million dollars remaining to help cool in the summer while families discourage air conditioners. The heat waves in the United States grow more dense and durable for a longer period due to climate change.

Usually, the federal government sends funds to state agencies after allocating money using a complex formula and performing various reviews and reviews. Some states, such as Maine, use money to help low -income families compensate for the cost of buying fuel oil to heat their homes in the winter. Countries also use funds to settle homes and provide emergency assistance to families at risk of separating them from their benefit.

Now, it is not clear how the remaining money can be spent on the states, although Congress explicitly commanded the federal government to spend money.

“If there are no employees, how can the rest of this money allocate?” Mr. Wolf said. “My fear is that they will say that we have this funding, but no one remains to manage it, so we cannot send it.”

In an e -mail statement, Emily Helerad, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services, said that the agency will continue to comply with “federal law” and as a result of reorganization, it will be in a better position to implement it on the legal intention of Congress.

Over the past two months, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to freeze or withhold spending authorized by Congress. Those moves An increasing number of legal challenges raised and Judicial rulings This says doing so unconstitutional.

The fires of the Energy Assistance Office sparked an angry response from many Democratic lawmakers.

“What” efficiency “achieved by everyone’s launch in Maine, whose mission is to help Mainers to withstand the costs of heating oil when the atmosphere is cold?” In the publication of social media.

Senator Edward Marci, Democrat Massachusetts, said he would try to open the program financing. “The elimination of the entire federal employees responsible for Liheap – a program on which millions of families depend to stay warm in winter and cold in the summer – is not a reform,” he said in a statement. “It is sabotage.”

The Senator Susan Collins, the Republican of Maine, issued a statement saying: “Senator Collins has been a long -standing defender of Liheap and critical financial assistance he provides to low -income families to help ensure their ability to stay warm during the winter months. It is not clear how, and if, the management of this program will be affected by changing HHS employees.”

A A study published in the economic magazine Last year, it was found that approximately 17 percent of American families spend more than ten of their income on energy, a threshold that researchers often define as a “severe” burden. The study also found a strong relationship between the ability to afford energy and winter deaths.

“When household heating is less affordable, more people die every winter,” Sima Jayshandran, an economist in Princeton and one of the authors of the study, He wrote on Monday. “This is what our analysis found for a while. Without Liheap, the effect is supposed to be much larger.”