FY 2011 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Appropriations

LOW INCOME HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (LIHEAP) GRANTEES AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES

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__X__TRIBES/TRIBAL ORGANIZATIONS

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FY 2011 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Appropriations

RELATED
REFERENCES:

(1) Low Income Home Energy Assistance Act of 1981, title XXVI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (Public Law (P.L.) 97-35), as amended.
(2) Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117);
(3) Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (P.L. 111-242);
(4) Department of Health and Human Services Appropriations Act, 2011 (Senate Bill (S.) 3686); and
(5) Continuing Appropriations and Surface Transportation Extensions Act, 2011 (P.L. 111-322)
(6) Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (P.L. 112-10)

PURPOSE:

To inform grantees and other interested parties of the appropriation of FY 2011 funds for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

BACKGROUND:

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Act of 1981 (P.L. 97-35), as amended, authorizes and sets two formulas for the allocation of LIHEAP regular block grant funds to the States.  The first formula (the old formula), which takes effect when the amount of such funds available to the States equals or falls below $1.975 billion, allocates such funds by the States’ shares received for FY 1984.  The second formula (the new formula) takes effect when the amount of such funds available to the States exceeds $1.975 billion.

CONTENT:

FY 2011 Award Process
On September 30, 2010, Congress passed the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (Public Law (P.L.) 111-242, which was the first of a series of continuing resolutions (CRs) that provided funds for LIHEAP in FY 2011.  Six CRs were passed that provided various levels of funding through April 2011. 

On April 15, 2011, the President signed the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (P.L. 112-10).  This law provided Federal agencies and programs, including LIHEAP, with their full-year appropriations for FY 2011.  It appropriated $4,509,672,000 for the FY 2011 regular block grant fund and applied a $9,019,344 rescission (0.20 percent of $4,509,672,000), resulting in a revised appropriation of $4,500,652,656.  This allowed HHS to award an additional $207,735,142 in regular block grant funds on May 19, 2011, to the funds previously awarded under all the preceding CRs in order to bring LIHEAP grantees to their full year allocations at $4.5 billion.

Because of the rescission, and because of prior awards to Tribal grantees, four States needed small downward adjustments to their net allocations.  These States (and their respective adjustment amounts) were Alaska ($38,763), Montana ($163,026), New Mexico ($1,611) and North Dakota ($337,248).  Also, because of the nature of the successive CRs, no FY 2011 funds were set aside for the leveraging and REACH programs.

State Median Income Eligibility under the Final Appropriation
P.L. 112-10 called for the State Median Income (SMI) income-eligibility standard to revert from 75 percent to 60 percent.  The LIHEAP appropriations acts that covered FY 2009, FY 2010, and, until passage of P.L. 112-10 (which occurred on April 15, 2011) FY 2011, contained provisions that raised, for all funds appropriated for or available in those periods, the SMI income-eligibility standard from 60 percent of SMI to 75 percent of SMI.  However, P.L. 112-10 explicitly lifted this provision, thus returning the standard to 60 percent of SMI (the standard called for by the LIHEAP authorizing statute).

Emergency Contingency Appropriations and Allocations
The first four CRs provided appropriations for LIHEAP emergency contingency purposes.  On January 24, 2011, the Secretary of Health and Human Services released $200 million of the available emergency contingency funds to all grantees to help eligible low-income households afford their high energy costs.  Neither the subsequent CRs nor P.L. 112-10 appropriated additional emergency contingency funds for FY 2011.

Please see Information Memorandum IM-2011-13, dated September 26, 2011, for more details about this release.

Summary of LIHEAP Appropriations and Allocations
The amounts of LIHEAP funds that were appropriated and allocated for FY 2011 are as follows:

ATTACHMENTS:

(1) Relevant sections of the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (P.L. 112-10); and
(2) FY 2011 allocation of regular block grant funds to LIHEAP grantees

INQUIRIES TO:

Peter Edelman, Program Analyst
Division of Energy Assistance
Office of Community Services, ACF
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
370 L'Enfant Promenade, S.W.
Washington, D.C.  20447
(202) 401-5292
E-mail: peter.edelman@acf.hhs.gov

______________/s_______________
Nick St. Angelo
Director
Division of Energy Assistance
Office of Community Services