As low-income families in New England search for the money to heat their homes each winter, their state governments, in turn, search for ways to allay the effects of the bitter cold on their constituents. This year, however, several states can turn to an unlikely benefactor in the perennial heating dilemma: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez has cut deals with seven states to receive discounts on heating oil from Citgo, which is owned by a state-run Venezuelan oil company; Yesterday, Connecticut was the most recent state to join the club. Of course, these deals in no way change the fact that relations between the United States and Venezuela are far from hunky-dory. While America still maintains diplomatic relation with the South American nation, Chavez and President Bush have traded a number of barbs with each other — for instance, Chavez remarked earlier this month that “Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush” — and the two nations regularly engage in diplomatic flare-ups.

It seems contradictory, then, for congressmen to be cutting deals with Chavez, who also maintains close ties with Cuba and has a less-than-stellar record on democratic freedoms. Isn’t it the role of the president to set foreign policy — not, say, William Delahunt, the U.S. representative from Massachusetts who first brokered the deal with Chavez in an effort to provide some relief for Bay State residents?

Maybe so. But isn’t it also the case that those Massachusetts residents are citizens of the United States of America? And if the federal government isn’t providing for its citizens, shouldn’t someone pick up the slack?

Delahunt and other representatives must do what they can to help their most vulnerable citizens survive the winter. Though a lack of heating oil is not as obvious a humanitarian crisis as, for instance, the genocide in Sudan, it is a humanitarian crisis nonetheless, and congressmen must uphold their responsibility to alleviate the problems of their constituents. Moreover, if states continue to follow suit in brokering deals with Chavez, they will send an effective message to President Bush: that perhaps his foreign policy towards Venezuela needs to be reconsidered.

State representatives should certainly be aware of tensions between President Bush and the leaders of other nations. But they also have to keep in mind the needs of their constituents — especially during times of need like the harsh New England winter. In the end, they cannot sit by and let their people freeze.