Trump: Poor People’s Power Bills Are Too Damn Low (Again)
The $4 billion energy assistance program some six million low-income households across the country depend on to pay for home heating and cooling is once again on the chopping block. That’s because President Trump effectively drew a line through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in his administration’s budget for the 2027 fiscal year. It’s the sixth time Trump has sought to eliminate federal funding for the program.
In addition to LIHEAP, the Trump administration has asked Congress to sunset the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). With an annual budget often exceeding $1 billion, WAP is the reason why more than seven million low-income households have been able to make energy efficiency upgrades to their homes since the program’s inception several decades ago. The Department of Energy provides weatherization services to approximately 35,000 homes annually, saving each household an average of $283 per year.
LIHEAP and WAP are among the many social safety net programs Russell Vought, whose office prepared the budget request, would prefer to disappear. His Office of Management and Budget has other priorities: In addition to his proposed gutting of various low-income assistance programs to the tune of $73 billion, he is also requesting an additional $400 billion for defense spending. At $1.5 trillion, it would be the largest military budget any nation in history has ever seen. Just the proposed increase of $400 billion would be either the second- or fourth-largest piece of military spending in the world by itself, depending on how one counts.
Trump’s war of choice with Iran has caused oil and gas prices to surge. It will likely take months for the global energy system to recover, and that’s only if the fighting stops soon.
“Cutting back on the things that make energy more affordable is taking us in the wrong direction,” said Jennifer Layke, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
LIHEAP and WAP are among the many social safety net programs Russell Vought, whose office prepared the budget request, would prefer to disappear.
For its part, LIHEAP not only helps low-income households pay their heating and cooling bills, but it provides emergency assistance to those households at risk of utility shutoffs. WAP, by contrast, helps households reduce their energy consumption, and thereby helps not only those households but also the whole planet by cutting energy demand.
“LIHEAP is a lifeline. It really is. There’s no question about it,” Steve Luxton, CEO of the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA), told the Prospect. He said the program “has been figuratively and literally counted on by low-income folks to help them with their arrearage,” or debt owed to a utility. Household utility debt in the U.S. skyrocketed to $23 billion last year, and according to S&P Global, 56 investor-owned utilities came into 2026 seeking rate increases to the tune of $14 billion.
ECA offers a range of services, all of which are geared toward helping people reduce their energy burdens. The organization oversees 16 energy centers throughout the city of Philadelphia. It is also the “primary administrator of the LIHEAP program in Delaware,” Luxton said. “We are nearing 10,000 applications for the year, in Delaware, that we process … for cash grants that go directly toward an energy provider.” Sending those disbursements directly to providers “ensures that the money goes right into [a LIHEAP participant’s] arrearage that they likely have built up with the utility, and it cuts it down,” he said, “so it’s a great program.”
Michelle Johnson, a 58-year-old Delaware resident and mother of two, learned she was eligible for LIHEAP in July 2024. “When they told me I was eligible, I wanted to kiss the ground,” she told the Prospect in an interview. Johnson, who was screened by ECA, applied to the program right away. Two weeks later, her LIHEAP application was accepted.
In the span of a year and a half prior to meeting with ECA, Johnson underwent six surgeries, bringing her many years of working in the nonprofit sector to an end. It was around that time she also began receiving long-term disability benefits. “I was raising my boys at the time, and they needed me,” she said. “I always worked, and I always struggled … my back was against the wall.”
One of the Trump administration’s purported justifications for gutting LIHEAP is that the program is “unnecessary” because state-level policies are already in place to prevent utility shutoffs for low-income households. In reality, this claim neglects the fact that some ratepayers, predominantly those living in rural areas, rely on nonregulated energy providers to heat their homes during the winter months. LIHEAP cash grants help low-income households that use on-site fuels to cover the cost of refilling their oil or propane tanks.
“Cash grants from LIHEAP are extremely important to ensure that they get fuel and just get them through the critical months,” Luxton told the Prospect. “That’s where LIHEAP becomes absolutely critical.”
He continued: “People could literally freeze to death, and in fact, we had several instances of folks who had an inoperable heater this past winter where all their pipes, because they went two weeks without heat … froze, and that is a cost-prohibitive repair.” For lack of a few dollars in heating bills, in other words, people can suffer catastrophic damage to their homes.
In the summertime, LIHEAP supports low-income households by offsetting their cooling expenses. Climate change, which as Luxton astutely points out, “is absolutely, undeniably happening,” has increased the frequency and severity of extreme heat periods. Meanwhile, summers are starting earlier, getting hotter, and lasting longer.
“Air-conditioning is no longer a luxury,” he said. “It is a necessity.”
That much is especially true during heat spells, which is defined as three consecutive days of 90 degrees Fahrenheit or above. In urban environments, it may take a while to absorb heat, but once that heat gets trapped in thermal mass like brick and concrete, “it stays in that mass for a longer period of time,” according to Luxton.
Philadelphia, known for its Industrial Age row homes, is one such environment where the summer heat can be relentless.
“People hope [and] pray for reprieve at night when the sun goes down,” Luxton told the Prospect. “As soon as the sun goes down, the second law of thermodynamics takes place: High energy is transferred to low energy, so the streets and the sidewalks and all the brick row homes are giving off that energy that they absorbed all day.”
Black residents represent nearly 38 percent of the city’s population, followed by white and Hispanic residents. Philadelphia has a total population of approximately 1.6 million people. Roughly 300,000 Philadelphians are currently living at or below the federal poverty line.
That said, dense cities like Philadelphia have some energy advantages. What 1920s row homes lack in modern design they make up for in energy potential, in large part due to the inherent efficiency of contiguous walls. Weatherizing row homes and other residential structures provides a “year-round benefit,” Luxton said. In Philadelphia, the weatherization assistance ECA provides is funded by local gas companies, while its operations in Delaware depend on WAP funding.
But unless Congress holds firm and rejects the Trump administration’s proposed cuts, low-income households will likely lack the resources needed to make essential energy efficiency upgrades, and have an even harder time affording their heating and cooling bills.
Johnson told the Prospect that without LIHEAP, “I would probably be staying with my aunt in Philly until we got enough to turn the lights back on.”
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