**Radio actuality available through the Radio link at:
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WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senator Susan Collins, who remains committed to seeing LIHEAP assistance funded at an adequate level, spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate today in support of a motion to waive the budget act with respect to S.2320, the LIHEAP bill. The final vote, 66-31, allows the Senate to consider authorization of an additional $1 billion in badly needed funds to help struggling families and senior citizens who have run out of funds to heat their homes. Each year, 4.5 million low-income families rely on LIHEAP to assist with the costs of heating their homes. In Maine, 78 percent of households use home heating oil to heat their homes. The record-high prices greatly increase the need for assistance, and at least 3,000 additional Mainers are expected to apply for LIHEAP funding this year. LIHEAP is a federal block grant program that provides states with annual funding to operate home energy assistance programs for low-income households. In addition to helping to pay energy bills for low-income families and the elderly, LIHEAP helps to fund energy crisis intervention programs, low-cost residential weatherization, and other energy-related home repairs. The following is the full text of Senator Collins’ remarks. “I want my colleagues to understand exactly what is at stake here. Early Tuesday morning, my state suffered a terrible tragedy. Three people including a woman and her ten-year-old son died when their house caught fire and burned to the ground. This was the most deadly fire in Maine in six years. They lived in Limestone, Maine, a town in Northern Maine, and on the night of the fire, temperatures were below zero. The family had run out of heating oil and as a result was using wood stoves to provide the heat. According to the firefighters, the fire started near one of the wood stoves in the kitchen. This, Mr. President, is literally a matter of life and death. At Christmastime, when I was home in my hometown of Caribou, Maine, two elderly women were hospitalized with hypothermia. This is not theoretical. It is not theoretical when there is ice in the toilet and our elderly and low income are at risk of illness, disease, and yes—even death—because they can not afford the high cost of home heating oil. And, Mr. President, the least we can do in a country as wealthy as ours is to provide some modest assistance. And, those who say the winter is almost over, come to where I’m from in Northern Maine. Believe me there is a lot more winter to come. Maine has run out of its LIHEAP funding, it’s time for us to provide this modest help.”