Despite President Bush’s reluctance to maintain fuel assistance funds, Massachusetts senators and congressmen reassured citizens Friday they would not be left out in the cold by energy cuts.
“Though a warm wind blows through Boston today, a cold wind is blowing through our economy,” said former Sen. Joseph Kennedy II, chairman of Citizens Energy.
Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) joined the younger Kennedy in fighting the Bush administration’s proposed $300 million cut for fuel assistance.
The Bush administration also refuses to release emergency fuel funds, which has not been done since before the Carter administration.
Joe Kennedy said fuel assistance is always a pressing issue, even during this year’s mild winter. This year alone, there was a 20 percent increase in fuel assistance applications. The demand for poverty-related assistance, especially in shelters and soup kitchens, has mostly increased this year as well.
According a statement, providing oil for needy families is a tremendous burden all governments throughout New England bear each winter. Reallocating these funds will hit New England hard; this region will be affected more than any other region in the United States.
Without the national fuel assistance program in place, 130,000 Massachusetts residents, including 20,000 from Boston, would go without heat all next winter, according to Bob Coard, CEO of Action for Boston Community Development, Inc., which administers the largest fuel assistance program in New England.
“In cold weather, many poor children with chronic health conditions start to lose weight and suffer additional problems with malnutrition because their families are spending less of their meager incomes on food and medicine and more on fuel,” Ted Kennedy said. “No family should have to choose between heat, rent, prescriptions drugs or food.”
“I don’t understand Bush’s rhetoric of ‘leaving no child behind’ and then cutting $300 million dollars from a heating program like this,” Kerry said.
Joe Kennedy emphasized the risks many poor and elderly people take to stay warm; they sleep with the stove on or the oven door open.
“We can do better,” he said. “There is money, it is just being spent on the wrong things. For example, the trillion dollar tax cut is giving back to America’s richest families.”
“This is the press conference I hoped we’d never have to have,” he said.
Coard accused the Bush administration of fighting the War on Terrorism on the backs of the poor and elderly.
“What will happen if the price of oil goes up and we have a bitter cold winter?” Coard asked. “Many people report they have to choose between heating and eating.”
Ted Kennedy expressed his great disappointment in the Bush administration.
“In a time of national unity, where there is a new spirit of the manifestation of the courage of ordinary people, we’re cutting elderly benefits,” he said. “Where’s the motivation? At this same time of the fuel cut, a $254 million Enron rebate was debated, and rewarded.”
Kerry said he feels Bush has “taken values from the heartland and then turned his back on the values of patriotism. The cut is contrary to years of accepted behavior by Democrats and Republicans.
“I will deny them the right to implement these values in society,” Kerry said, referring to the nationwide $330 billion energy-related cuts and the financial bonuses granted to corporations such as GE, IBM and Enron. “They are unconscionable and unacceptable.”
Rep. Michael Cupuano (D-Mass.) said the solution is simply to battle the administration through the Senate and Congress. He said the best thing voters can do is elect representatives who actually care about keeping their constituents warm.
Kerry acknowledged the Bush family was tied deeply into the oil industry, but he would not say if these ties influenced cash bonuses awarded to oil companies, such as the $572 million to Chevron-Texaco and $241 million to Philips Petroleum. He also would not say if the fuel assistance cuts were related to these ties.
Many Boston residents who depend on fuel assistance were present at the conference. Tom Collins, a Dorchester resident who is dependent on fuel assistance, claims to have confidence in the senators’ words.
Chavela Aaron, head of the Dorchester Youth Center and a neighbor of Collins, said Collins is a perfect example of someone who benefits from the program.
“I brought people to this conference because I want to make sure people like Tom get heat,” she said. “I have to go to his house to make sure his heat is on or off, depending on how much oil he has.
“People can be on the program, but they still won’t know when the oil is full so that they can turn the heat on,” she said.
Collins said he uses a dangerous, old space heater, just so he can make sure his oil will last.
“I never put it above 70 degrees,” he said. The proposed cut would decrease this amount of oil.
“At the Youth Center, I always see kids coming in sick, then their brother, then their sister,” Aaron said.
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