David Obey: “what is behind this amendment is very simple. The gentleman would like to hold the low-income heating assistance funding…”

“what is behind this amendment is very simple. The gentleman would like to hold the low-income heating assistance funding in this bill hostage to drilling in ANWR. He cannot do that under the rules of the House; and so from his standpoint, the next best thing is to eliminate low-income heating assistance in general. I was one of the three original authors of the low-income heating assistance program, along with Silvio Conte, Republican from Massachusetts, and Ed Muskie in the Senate. And I think I know something about this program and why this amendment is destructive. Let me explain what happened last year. The House-passed version of the budget reconciliation bill included $1 billion for LIHEAP to be available in fiscal 2006. But just before the reconciliation conference was completed, the defense appropriations conference report was filed, and that contained an additional $2 billion for LIHEAP as part of the sweetener for ANWR oil leasing provisions. Not wanting to duplicate the ANWR funds, the reconciliation conferees shifted their addition to fiscal 2007. Subsequent to that, however, the entire ANWR package, including the $2 billion appropriated for LIHEAP, was dropped out of the defense appropriations conference report. The end result was no additional funds for LIHEAP in 2006, despite escalating heating oil and natural gas prices.…”