Kent Conrad: “Mr. President, Senator Kyl has suggested that we increase Pell grant funding by $528 million. That is a worthy goal.…”

“Mr. President, Senator Kyl has suggested that we increase Pell grant funding by $528 million. That is a worthy goal. That is something that I would like to see done. But he suggests paying for it by taking that money out of the low-income heating assistance program. The Senator from Arizona experiences a different reality than the one I experience. The Senator from Arizona says the energy crisis is over; the need for low-income heating assistance has ended. I could not disagree more. We have just had in my State the worst winter in our history. In fact, we saw heating oil prices spike significantly, with natural gas hitting an all-time high. Propane spiked dramatically, hitting an all-time high. Mr. President, this is not the time to end the low-income heating assistance program. We just went through a winter in which not only did we have the worst winter in terms of snowfall in our history, but we had, if I am not mistaken, eight blizzards and nine major winter storms. We also had the most powerful winter storm in 50 years in the first week of April. Mr. President, that was devastating in my State.”