Political Quotes

“on Tuesday, I introduced S. 3186, the Warm in Winter and Cool in Summer Act. This bill would provide $2.53 billion in emergency funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly known as LIHEAP. I take this opportunity to thank the majority leader for completing the rule XIV process of placing this bill directly on the Senate calendar yesterday. I also want to express my deep appreciation to him for his goal of moving this legislation forward within the next month. I think there is widespread support, in a nonpartisan way, for this legislation, which impacts people when the weather gets hot and it impacts people when the weather gets cold. This bipartisan bill is being cosponsored by Senators Leahy, Snowe, Brown, Sununu, Cardin, Coleman, Kerry, Collins, Kennedy, and Smith and I expect that the numbers of Senators from both sides of the aisle who will be supporting it will only grow. The bottom line here is pretty simple, and that is: With the cost of energy soaring, we have many millions of Americans wondering next winter how they are going to be able to stay warm, and we have got to expand LIHEAP funding to match the inflationary costs of home heating fuel. For those people living in warm weather States, what we understand right now is that electricity rates are also soaring. There are many Americans--elderly people, lower income people--who are unable to afford the increasingly high cost of electricity.…”