 Good afternoon. This is Seth Schuster, Regional Communications Director at the White House. Thank you all for joining today's Northeast Regional Press Briefing to discuss the importance of the low-income home energy assistance program, or LIHEAP, to Americans who are struggling with costs of home winter heating. A state-by-state breakdown of the funding should have come to your inboxes earlier today, but please reach out if you haven't gotten that release. Today, we are joined by White House American Rescue Plan Coordinator and Senior Advisor to the President, Gene Sperling, Assistant Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Katherine Clark, House of Representatives' Royal Committee Chairman, Congressman Jim McGovern, Congressman Peter Welch, and Congressman Chris Pappas. Following the remarks, we will open it up for some questions. And as a reminder, this briefing is on the record, but the entire call is embargoed until its conclusion. And with that, I'll hand it over to Gene. Gene? Well, thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm particularly honored to be with these particular members of Congress because they, each to a person, have played a true leadership role on this issue of heating and home energy costs for low-income and moderate families. You know, for myself, coming on March 15 to be the coordinator of the American Rescue Plan, you know, I had been familiar with and had even advised from the outside on many parts of what ended up in the American Rescue Plan. But there were certainly many elements in this incredibly important and historic American Rescue Plan. That I, like many people, learned as they passed Congress. I think, as we got into this year, one of the ones that, to me, seemed so particularly wise, showed such particular foresight was the increase, the dramatic and historic increase in LIHEAP. Truly, at a time where one would have not seemed to have had a crystal ball on what our situation would be with energy costs today. But, you know, the people on this call, you know, really played leadership roles in making that happen so that as we have come to, as we have come to the winter of 21 and 2022, thanks to them, we are much better prepared as a country to help people, families who are, who without this help may have felt that much more oppressed and that much more of a struggle to meet their winter home heating cost. You know, it's pretty striking the appropriation for this year for LIHEAP, the average normal appropriation was around $3.3 billion. These congressional leaders had the wisdom to put in an additional $4.5 billion. So it is close to $8 billion in total. It's the largest amount for LIHEAP that our country's ever had, and it could not have come at a better time and wouldn't have come without the leadership and foresight, again, that they showed. So again, $8 billion in a single fiscal year is the largest since the program was established in 1981. In addition to that, you know, today we announced the November results for the emergency rental assistance program. This was a brand new program that also came out of the American Rescue Plan. Because it was brand new and people were starting up programs in over 400 states and jurisdictions, you know, there were struggles in startup costs in startup. But today for November we announced 665,000 rental families received assistance, just a striking amount, $2.9 billion went out. And it is important to know that that money is eligible and is being used not only to pay the backer rears, rental rears to help landlords and agree to have tenants stay in their home, prevent homelessness, have housing security, prevent eviction. But that funds also addresses utility costs as well. When you put the emergency rental assistance and LIHEAP together, we really are as well positioned as we could imagine being thanks specifically to the American Rescue Plan and again to these increases. And again, this was done with the foresight of not knowing exactly where things were going to be done this year. You know, today the the Biden administration released what those numbers actually look like state by state. So for example, Massachusetts, which is being represented here quite well, you know, is receiving $107.5 billion, $187 million of that is from the American Rescue Plan, $187 million, New Hampshire is receiving $60.7, $35.5 million from the American Rescue Plan and Vermont $45.5 million, including $26.6 million from the American Rescue Plan. So their efforts have led for their own states but most importantly for really all 50 states are more than doubling of the resources available just in LIHEAP and far more than that when one considers the potential utility help relief for low and moderate income renters through the emergency rental assistance. We worked as an administration to bring together governors to do a series of consultations with the people who run the LIHEAP and ERA programs to make sure that people were ready using best practices, coordinated and that you know again coordinating these new streams of funds, none of these states or cities had ever had to try to coordinate utility relief from a emergency rental program and LIHEAP at the same time. And I think there's been a very strong response. We also at that time put out what we felt was a series of best practices that we asked utilities to live up to which included you know how they worked with and shared information in terms of getting out both LIHEAP and emergency rental assistance dollars and you know including you know commitment to not do shutoffs during this difficult winter for people who are in the pipeline and participating in these programs and we're very happy that 14 utilities including several utilities that are serving the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont have stepped up and made that commitment and we hope more will you know their commitment was to proactively identify customers who might be eligible for LIHEAP or ERA, proactively inform customers of energy assistance, proactively work to speed out the distribution and as I said commit to placing a hold on any utility shutoff when a company is notified the customer is applying for either of these financial hardship programs. I will also mention that state and local money that was part of the American Rescue Plan that each of these members helped lead and pass is also available and has been used by some states and cities as well. So with that I want to you know again thank congress congressman Pap, congressman Welch, chairman McGovern, the congressman congresswoman and assistant speaker Catherine Clark for being here a couple of people here I have worked with for a long time on different issues over more than one decade. I really appreciate it but your foresight and leadership here has just helped millions of people are we going to make life better for millions of people this winter we're not satisfied there's more to do but I'm but thank you for joining us for what you did to pass this most of all and for joining us in this effort on this call today and then the efforts we will take together to push to do more as we go forward. So with that let me turn it over to congresswoman and assistant speaker Catherine Clark the floor is yours. Oh well thank you so much and good afternoon to everyone on the call and thank you especially to the White House for bringing us together to discuss how we are lowering energy costs for American families and a special thanks to Eugene for all your incredible efforts to implement this historic American Rescue Plan as well as to my colleagues joining today's call Chairman Jim McGovern congressman Peter Welch from Vermont and congressman Chris Pappas from New Hampshire these members are champions for ensuring everyone can afford to heat their homes and as a member of the New England delegation and the Appropriations Committee funding for LIHEAP has always been a priority and with the winter months comes the reality that too many families are forced to choose between their heating bills and eating or paying other bills the home energy assistance program provides financial support to low-income families that helps them stay warm and stay safe and as this pandemic has continued to spike energy costs more families are struggling to make ends meet and to help meet this growing need President Biden led and congressional Democrats delivered the American Rescue Plan that as Gene already mentioned has more than doubled LIHEAP funding adding four and a half billion dollars to the annual appropriation in total my home state of Massachusetts will be receiving over 307 million dollars for heating assistance the highest level of LIHEAP funding the Commonwealth has ever received and for the average family receiving this assistance this means an additional 400 dollars in financial support furthermore the American Rescue Plan provides states and localities with over 21 billion dollars in funding to help renters with past due utility bills and ongoing assistance with energy costs to avoid shutoffs state current on expenses and stay safe these programs are about ensuring the dignity and health of all Americans and I am immensely proud to partner with the White House and my colleagues to lower costs for families our message to the American people is clear we see the challenges you face and we are meeting them with real solutions lower costs lower taxes and a stronger economy that supports the stability and success of every family and now I'd like to pass the virtual mic to my friend and colleague Chairman Jim McGovern Jim we can hear you how's that can you hear me now yes all right let me start again first of all Catherine thank you and I'm proud to serve with you and I also am proud to serve with Peter Welsh and Chris Pappas I want people on this call to understand that we in the New England delegation we work as a team and we look at the entire region and I think it has been helpful not just in Massachusetts but to New Hampshire and Vermont as well and thank you Jean you know we we appreciate your leadership we are glad you are where you are and thanks for helping to organize this call I'm going to get to lie heap in one second but first I just want to highlight the December jobs report that was released today because I think it's a big deal you know when President Biden took office the unemployment rate stood at 6.4 percent and thanks to his leadership in partnership with Democrats in the House and Senate America's unemployment rate hit 3.9 percent years ahead of expectations it was the sharpest one-year drop in unemployment in American history 84 percent of jobs lost during the pandemic have now been regained and we know so much of that progress is due to the American Rescue Plan that we all supported and work very hard to get past over Republican obstructionism and thanks to the American Rescue Plan as has been announced Massachusetts receive a lie heap allocation of over 300 million dollars for this fiscal year and that is a game changer I cannot underscore how huge this is it is more than double our normal lie heap funding and I also want to take a second to recognize someone not on this call who has been important in this fight that's Congresswoman Rosa DeLoreau of Connecticut together we help make sure that lie heap funding is more equitably distributed among states and I'm proud that because we led that fight to change the formula New England will be receiving more money here than we otherwise would have and finally I want to talk about who this means what this means for families in my district no family should have to choose between paying their energy bills or paying for other necessities such as food or medicine during dangerously cold days but too many families in the second congressional district have to make that awful choice too many families lose sleep because they're thinking about what they're going to do how they're going to survive when their utilities get shut off and that's why I also want to commend the White House for working with us to call in utility companies to prevent devastating utility shutoffs and help expedite the delivery of federal aid here in Massachusetts like my colleagues on this call I my constituents put up with frigid winters and nobody should walk into their own home and be able to see their own breath because they had to choose between heating and eating nobody should have to make that choice it's it's immoral and so when you talk to the organizations that distribute the money they have to make heartbreaking choices about who gets heating assistance because they can't help everybody and I'm grateful for the incredible work of the community action agencies and particularly these staff of the community action agencies that do so much to try to make sure that families in need get the help that they're quite frankly they deserve and so again I want to recognize President Biden for making this historic investment that will really make such a difference for low-income families it will make a difference for senior citizens and for veterans in Massachusetts that throughout New England who rely on the support of LIHEAP to heat their homes and so let me at this point turn the program over to my colleague from Vermont who I've had the honor of serving within the rules committee at for a period of time but who is somebody I admire greatly a congress congressman Peter Welsh. Thank you very much Jim I want to also thank the White House in Jean you've been doing tremendous work for years in my colleagues Catherine and in Chris. Number one it is really important to emphasize the progress that's being made because COVID is wearing us all down it really is tough and especially in Vermont we've got vaccines in arms and we're up to 95% vaccination but we're still having an explosion of cases with Omicron and it's wearing folks down and we've got to hang in there and the fact that there are really positive things really cutting the unemployment rate in half people have jobs that we're going back to work that we're confident that with all the vaccinations that are out there we're going to start bringing that infection rate down but COVID has had impacts and where emotional impacts on everyone but folks who don't have money in the stock market have seen the cost of the necessities increase and they don't have an upside because the folks that are going to be receiving the benefit of fly heat don't have the way to pay the bill to heat their home and it's cold here in Vermont right now and that is a level of insecurity you can see your breath in your home as Jim McGovern said and just think you're a disabled person or you're taking care of a disabled person or you're a mom or dad mom and dad and you're taking care of young kids and they're not only hungry but they're pretty cold so the necessity of having this supplement in our funding for fly heat is absolutely existential for so many of our Vermont families and thanks to the combination of the funding and the art of money we're going to have 45 million dollars in in Vermont that's the largest that's the largest amount we've ever had over 39,000 Vermonters are absolutely dependent on this funding seniors especially and in Vermont one in three one in three of our citizens struggle with paying the bill for home heating so this is absolutely vital it comes at a time when the margin within a family both economically and emotionally with us batting down the hatches to try to get through COVID this is a moment when the need is especially great as I say financial and emotional so I want to thank the White House and I want to thank my colleagues for the determination to not force people to make this choice between eating and eating thank you very much well thanks Peter I think I'll pick it up from there and then we'll turn it back over to the moderator to see if there are any questions but I want to thank my colleagues from the New England delegation for your long-standing commitment to helping bring more resources to families who needed in our region and all across the country who are struggling to pay the bills nothing could be more important as we enter these tough winter months and thanks as well the Gene Sperling for your leadership and to the White House for helping to leverage these resources for families in my district and across the country we know that cold and snow is part of our way of life in New England we're seeing that today but we also know that the winter months bring hardship for a lot of our families and so as we enter these cold days we know that heating homes and being able to afford home heating oil is a critical concern to so many of our families especially lower income individuals and families who are struggling with increased prices over last year so that's why these funds through the LIHEAP program and the American Rescue Plan are just going to be so crucial to making sure that people can pay the bill make ends meet and stay healthy and stay strong through the winter. Each year New Hampshire LIHEAP provides assistance to more than 30,000 households we have an annual appropriation of about 25 million dollars which as Gene indicated is going to be increased by 35 million dollars because of the American Rescue Plan dollars that's a significant increase and is really going to help families who need it most the additional funding has allowed our state to be able to increase support for home heating assistance to families by about 60 percent this winter so that's welcome news to residents and families here. In my state our CAP agencies administer the program to get funding out to communities I actually had a round table a few weeks ago with our CAP agency leaders who were talking about getting folks to apply they've seen a large volume of folks filling out applications and already receiving assistance. Our largest CAP agency is Southern New Hampshire Services they do about 12,000 applications for assistance a year and they've seen an increase over that this year and also an increase in the need not just for fuel assistance but for help paying electric bills too. I talked to another CAP agency in my district who remarked on the number of folks that she hears from who are keeping their homes at 40 or 50 degrees during the winter months we're talking about people who are elderly who are disabled parents with kids at home we know that's not a safe and healthy environment for these individuals so this funding couldn't come at a more important time for granted staters it's really going to allow our local community action agencies to get this help where it needs to go and so I would just urge anyone in my district to reach out to their local CAP to get connected with assistance so thanks again to everyone for being a part of this call and helping to get these resources where it's going to make a difference and I'll turn it back over to the moderator. Thanks Congressman Pappas now we'll take some time for questions um if you have a question please click the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen and you'll be added to the queue I'll give you a few seconds to do that and then we can open it up we'll first go to Angie Gonzalez. Hi guys um specifically I wanted to reach out to Representative Clark and Representative McGovern because I specifically cover Massachusetts was there a reason that you two ended up on this specific you know call but effort to make sure that there um was enough money for families this year is there something specific about Massachusetts that you think is uh going to benefit from this extra money in the program? You want to go ahead Jim? Go ahead Catherine. Okay uh thank you so much for the question and uh you know uh LIHEAP has been important to me since I first served in the state legislature because we have uh cold days snowy days like today and we also have high cost of energy in the best of times never mind uh following uh pandemic and uh and what that's done to um our global markets so this is critical to families at home and um I am so grateful to this administration for their leadership and help in framing the American Rescue Plan and looking um in a holistic way at what we needed to do to get uh base status and families across the country the help and the relief they needed and I think that Massachusetts is one of those states where our high cost of living um really necessitates this investment in American families and lowering their costs to help them uh get back on their feet and stay warm and secure this winter. And I'll just you know let me associate myself with the remarks of Catherine I mean she stated it very succinctly but look at we have every year not just Catherine and I our delegation the New England delegation we fight like hell for adequate LIHEAP funding in the appropriations process and then we oftentimes have to we fight for you know supplemental emergency appropriations because what has been allocated is not enough. Families in Massachusetts oftentimes have to face this difficult challenge between putting food on the table or heating their homes and with this additional allocation that's being announced today we want to again thank President Biden for his leadership on the American Rescue Package but hopefully fewer families will have to make that decision you know I spent a lot of time working on issues of hunger and food and security we have a hunger problem in this country and it's exacerbated by things like high energy costs and so um so this is a big deal I said it in my opening remarks this is a huge deal for Massachusetts it's a huge deal for New Hampshire it's a huge deal from for Vermont and so you know this is who we are I mean these are the programs we go to bat for every year and and again it's not just Catherine Catherine and myself is our entire delegation and it's the entire New England delegation. Thank you. Nice to know Haley. I just also want to point out you know these particular members on the phone for me looking back at the history of this I look to a January 29th letter that was from Congressman McGovern and Welch January 29th as the package was just being together that was both Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader McCarthy specifically asking for this letter so January I was January 29th 2021 just as this was being happening at the same time Congresswoman Clark just just before the break led a bicameral letter to HHS also asking for more actions on these and Representative Pappas was one of the key signers of a letter to the president on a variety of issues including this so you know I think each person here has been a particular leader on this issue and again I think that January 29th letter was to me one of the real instigations at the beginning for this for this inclusion in the American Rescue Plan. Well nice to go to Haley Fuller Boston Globe. Hi so this is directed representatives McGovern and Clark again but I was wondering do you have the data on either percentage or number of Massachusetts households that have received this assistance in the past and that are expected to receive it this year? I don't have it off hand but I we can get that to you I mean that's that's unless Catherine has it. I don't have it in front of me but we'll follow up with you on that. Great thank you so much. But can I just say in the past you know the the the the demand has always outweighed your money that has been available to provide assistance and so that is why we are so happy that the American Rescue Package has this additional $300 million from Massachusetts but we'll get you the statistics. Yeah and I just want to follow up a little bit on what Congressman McGovern just said because one of the problems with as these funds get low for people who are still using oil to heat their homes we can't do a partial delivery and so it really does become a crisis and having this additional funding up front that people and especially the agencies that help implement the LIHEAP funding this will make a huge difference and will make a much smoother way to deliver this assistance to families in need. We'll now go to Sarah Rose Brenner at WBUR. Hi actually it's Dave Fan of the WBUR taking Sarah Rose's place today. Just quickly I would love that data as well if you could email it out over to us. I did speak with some CACs yesterday and one of the things that struck me in the conversation was the lag time between the announcement of money is coming and the money actually getting there so what what are we looking at for lag time before agencies like ABCD can actually get the funds? Gene do you have any updated information? How quick the money will get out? Well the the money flows to the state and and so it really is for the state at this point to do the distribution but I'm happy to I'm happy to check check as well. Yeah we're happy to follow up on that. I think we have time for one more question and we'll go to John Salant New Jersey Advanced Media. Thank you for doing this call. I don't know if you can from my state though I have talked to Peter Wells about drug prices and Jim McGovern about sub rules for the rules committee. The question for any of the lawmakers. Well yeah as we know prices the energy prices are still high no indication how much they will drop going on as already and you're doing the appropriations bills for next year as we speak and you talk about trying to make sure there is extra money like this but like in the American Rescue Plan for the next fiscal year for next winter in case prices stay high. Peter you're on mute. I was just saying that I think everybody on this group is committed every year to assessing the reality of the situation families face and obviously higher prices means that the set amount of LIHEAP money goes it doesn't go far enough so we don't know what the future will be but we'll be prepared to advocate for funding to make certain families here secure. I suspect I speak for all of us on that. Just on the last question this is Gene the American Rescue Plan money actually went to states in you know in April May of this year and then the normal appropriation amount went out in November so funds are at the state level so you'd have to ask at a more gubernatorial level you know issues on the distribution but the money from both the American Rescue Plan amount and the normal appropriation amount has been distributed by HHS to all of the states. And John let me just say that I think again I speak for everybody here we're going to do all we can to make sure that the next appropriation cycle includes as much as humanly possible to support the LIHEAP program and you know in the past when we've had divided congresses and we've had different people in the White House it's been awful it's been sometimes very difficult to get them to appreciate the importance of programs like LIHEAP. LIHEAP these programs you know are literally help prevent families from having to make the difficult choice between heating their homes or eating and so so we're going to this will be a major you know focus for all of us you know whether it's Chris or Peter or Catherine myself so and you know to the extent that we can continue this in the future I don't want to get political but I mean you I think it's important that there that there be people in congress who actually understand what this program does and why it is so important and how many families working families rely on this as well as senior citizens and veterans so so we're we're rolling up our sleeves and we're ready to get to work on the next appropriation like we want to we want to make sure we pass the last set of bills as well and we're hoping to get to that you know in the coming month so I yield back thank you I think we do have time for one more question I see Melissa Burke from the Detroit News has had her hand up for a long time so I will let Melissa go and then we'll wrap and I'll encourage anyone else who has a follow-up question to shoot me an email and we'll be happy to work through it offline hi thanks thanks I appreciate it I actually I think that the last question actually Jean just addressed what I was just trying to clarify that this was money sorry this was the the the the ARP supplemental that went to the states last May or last summer and then the regular allocation that was in November so basically all this money has already gone to the states and they can use it what through the end of fiscal 2022 I mean I don't know I believe you have to use 90 I should double check because I believe you have to have used 90 percent by by the end of the by the end of fiscal year so this this would this would still be funds that could be on the winter be used you know for for those places that face heating challenges you know clearly Michigan you know is had among the more innovative proposals I mean you know distribution and in terms of you know just to emphasize what chairman government was saying you know this is this is the most ever but it does not cover all those who could be eligible and when you're asking about you know the questions about how many people are going to get it I think every state is looking at the issue of expanding the number versus also deepening the cost deepening the payments for those who have higher costs and so one of the reasons we encourage people to look at the emergency rental assistance if some of the people could get help through that who were renters perhaps that would allow more funds for homeowners but all of the the states here and the caps that distribute et cetera you know all have to make some level of decisions between broadening the numbers that you know and I think most of them are both broadening the numbers but a lot of them are also expanding the costs for those who are going to face higher than normal heating costs over the over the winter. Could I follow up there with could you speak to why Michigan had to touch an innovative proposal? Well no I think they've had a strong plan but let me I will I will I can call you back to go over but in our initial fact sheet that went out they were one of the places that we that we highlighted and Governor Whitmer was one of our participants on on the call that we did in November so let me let me get that for you. Thank you. All right everybody thank you so much for joining this call this afternoon thank you to our wonderful participants uh take care and have a good one and stay warm.