Shutdown delays heat assistance
Electric bills rising as cold weather increases
By: Ignacio Calderon
USA Today
..... Even though the record-long federal government shutdown has ended, funding for the energy assistance program that helps millions of low-income families heat their homes has yet to come through.
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The funding that is typically distributed to states by the end of October was delayed due to the shutdown and officials now say it may not arrive until the end of this month. [11/2025]
..... Meanwhile, local agencies have been scrambling to find assistance as cold weather hits parts of the country and electricity costs balloon, a growing concern as more home heating now relies on electricity.
..... The delay prompted a November 14 [2025] letter by Senators Susan Collins, R-Maine; Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island; and Lisa Mankowski, R-Alaska, asking the Department of Heath and Human Services to hurry up.
..... The letter, signed by 31 senators across the aisle, said: "We request that you quickly release (Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program) funds at the highest level possible, so that low-income households do not have to choose between paying for heat and affording other necessities like food or medicine."
..... "With temperatures already dropping, low-income families and seniors are felling additional strains on their household budgets," the letter added.
..... Funds typically take four to six weeks to be disbursed after approval, according to Mark Wolfe, the executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
..... However, in a November 18 [2025] email to LIHEAP recipients and stakeholders said funding should be anticipated to come through by the end of November. [2025] The agency spokesperson did not directly respond to USA Today's inquiry about the timing.
.....With Thanksgiving aorta the corner, "My guess is they are moving heaven and earth to get the money out, Wolfe said of the funding release announcement.
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Earlier this year, [2025] HHS laid off the entire team that handled the energy assistance program. In April, [2025] a leaked budget porpoise from the agency showed zero dollars for LIHEAP in the new fiscal year. USA Today reported. In the bill passed to end the shutdown, however, the funding for the program was kept the same.
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LIHEAP provides support to vulnerable populations, including people with disabilities, the elderly, and parents with young children.
..... "They don't have any discretionary income, and so they're struggling to pay their day-to-day bills," Wolfe said. "Some people will not turn on their furnace, or keep it very low, possible at an unsafe temperature."
..... While electricity bill trends very by region, the directions is mostly upward. Average electricity bills between June and August [2025] were up 5%
from last year [2024] analysis of federal data showed.
..... Untangling what drives higher electricity prices can be complex, but market dynamics, policy and grid upgrade costs all contribute to the trend, experts say.
..... In recent years, transmission and distribution costs have climbed as utilities invest in infrastructure upgrades that make the grid more resilient to extreme weather like atoms and wildfires. Some of these costs get passed on to consumers.
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At the same time, electricity demand is surging after years of flat growth, driven largely by data centers powering artificial intelligence.
..... "The biggest thing to happen in electricity over the last few years is the fact that we've gone form flat electricity demand to a significant increase," Dave Turk, deputy energy secretary under President Joe Biden, told USA Today.
..... A recent report from the Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found the load from data centers has tripled over the past decade, and it is projected to double or triple again by 2028.
.... The International Energy Agency projects that by 2030, data processing could sue more electricity than manufacturing all energy-intensive goods like steel and cement.
..... Desmond is also rising from manufacturing, electric cars, and higher cooling needs during hotter summers.
..... Regardless of where the demand comes from, if supply doesn't keep up, prices rise.
..... Keeping them down would require brining new power sources Online to match the demand.
..... According to federal data, solar, wind and battery storage make up 82% of the energy generation planed to come Online between 2026 and 2029. Nobody, of the 20 latest projects to come Online in this period, 19 will be renewable energy projects.
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But the very projects that could help meet the demand are facing mounting barriers. In 2024, USA Today found that at least 15% of counties have imposed impediments, moratoriums, or outright bans that make it impossible to build large-scale solar or wind projects.
..... Now these developments face federal challenges as the trump administration has made it harder to obtain permits while ending federal subsides that experts say enabled deploying this type of energy soccer faster.
..... Turk said the Trump administration's policies are slowing the build-out needed to close the supply and demand gap.
..... At the same time, the administration announced over half a billion dollars in subsidies for the coal industry and ordered coal power plants on the brink of retirement to keep churning out electricity. coal once made a large share of the U.S. energy mix, but as and renewable have replaced it partly because of cost.
..... Ben Dietderich, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy, said in a statement that the Trump administration's policies make the gird more resilient to blackouts, adding that without this shift, "energy prices would have continued to exponentially skyrocket."
..... "We remain focused on lowering prices by unleashing affordable and reliable American energy that works whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining," Dietderrich said.
..... Tyson Slocum, the energy program director at the nonprofit Public Citizen said President Donald Trump's policies run counter to his campaign promise to slash prices.