The Trump administration has suddenly laid off all staff running the $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay for heating and cooling bills.
The shooting was threatened to paralyze a low-income housing energy assistance program created by Congress in 1981, helping to offset the high utility bills of around 6.2 million from Maine to Texas during the cold and hot summers.
“They fired everyone. No one will do anything,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which works with the state to secure funding from the program. “This was incredibly sloppy or I'm going to kill the program entirely.”
The layoffs were part of a broader purging on Monday of around 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services. This is because Health Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved to dramatically reorganize the agency. Approximately 25 employees oversee the Energy Assistance Program, also known as Liheap. Everything had been fired, Wolf said.
Congress has approved $4.1 billion for the 2025 program, with about 90% of that money already being sent to the state in October to help households struggling with high heating costs. There is still about $378 million left to help households turn up their air conditioners and cool them down the summer. The US heat wave is stronger and longer-lasting as a result of climate change.
Typically, the federal government uses complex formulas to allocate funds and conduct various reviews and audits before sending money to state agencies. Some states, like Maine, use money to support low-income families to offset the cost of buying fuel oil to warm their homes in the winter. The state also uses money to weather homes and provide emergency assistance to households at risk of being separated from their practicality.
Now, despite Congress explicitly ordering the federal government to spend money, it is not clear how the remaining funds will be paid to the state.
“If we don't have staff, how do we allocate the rest of this money?” Wolf said. “My fear is they're going to say we have this funds, but we can't send it because no one is left to manage it.”
In an emailed statement, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the agency would “continue to comply with federal law.”
For the past two months, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to freeze or withhold expenses approved by Congress. These moves have led to more and more legal challenges and judicial rulings that it is unconstitutional to do so.
The shootings at the Energy Aid Bureau sparked a furious response from several democratic lawmakers.
“Is 'efficiency' achieved by firing everyone in Maine, a job that helps Maine provide heating oil when it's cold? ” wrote Jared Golden, a Democrat who represents most rural Maine districts who voted for President Trump, in a social media post.
Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat of Massachusetts, said he will work to unlock funds for the program. “Eliminating the entire federal staff of Liheap's heads — relying on millions of households to stay warm in the winter, and summer is not a cool program — is not a reform,” he said in a statement. “That's an obstruction.”
“Senator Collins is a longtime advocate for LIHEAP and provides the important financial support we provide to help low-income families stay warmer during the winter,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.
A survey published in Economics magazine last year found that around 17% of US households spend more than a tenth of their income on energy. The study also found a strong relationship between affordable energy and winter mortality.
“When heating your home is not affordable, more people die each winter,” wrote Sheema Jayachandran, Princeton economist and one of the study's authors, on Monday. “That's what our analysis found during the time Liheap was in place. Without Liheap, the effect would probably be much greater.”
