Political Quotes

“I rise today in support of the supplemental appropriations bill before us. We must act quickly to extend relief to the victims of the devastating earthquake that hit southern California on January 17th. These people need our help to rebuild their homes and businesses and to put their lives back together. This bill also contains a less-publicized provision intended to respond to a natural disaster that has rolled through much of the rest of the country: record cold weather. The bill before us would give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to target $300 million in emergency low-income home energy assistance funds to States that have suffered through the recent cold snap. Millions of people rely on this program to heat their homes during the winter. This extra assistance is especially important in Connecticut and other cold weather States in the Northeast and Midwest that were hit hard by the cold weather in January. This weather came at a time when the Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program was poorly equipped to cushion the blow for poor families. Taking inflation into account, the purchasing power of the program has been cut in half during the last 9 years. The program now reaches only 25 percent of eligible households. In my own State of Connecticut, benefits were cut by 10 percent this year, and applications are up 7 percent. These are not just numbers: there are human faces behind them.”