LIHEAP Cuts Put Americans in Peril Amidst a Summer of Relentless Heat July 24, 2025

It’s been an extremely hot and humid summer for many in the U.S. Extreme heat is particularly challenging for those low-income families and rising energy costs mean that even those households that have air-conditioning often find they can’t afford to keep it running. Electricity costs are a bigger strain on low-income, Black and Hispanic households, which expend a greater percentage of their total household income on energy than white and wealthy households. This higher energy burden is one of the reasons that heat-related illnesses and death are also higher amongst these groups.

In the past, as many as 6.7 million households received live-saving heating and cooling assistance through the Health and Human Services (HHS) Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provided states with funding for households with high energy burdens. Unfortunately, in April the Trump Administration fired the HHS staff responsible for LIHEAP. The program’s funding is also at risk since it depends on Congressional appropriations. Since April, PSR’s environment and health team has been working with partners to raise awareness about how cutting LIHEAP will put millions of Americans lives at risk as they will be forced to make impossible choices between spending money to protect themselves from extreme temperatures and other essential needs. This month, we also partnered with Earthjustice and Union of Concerned Scientists to bring health leaders to the hill to ask Congress to support LIHEAP by keeping it fully funded, staffed and maintained.