{"id":421569,"date":"2025-12-03T10:12:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421569\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:12:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:12:18","slug":"pennsylvania-heating-bill-help-available-after-shutdown-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421569\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania heating bill help available after shutdown delay"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania households can apply for help paying their winter heating bills<\/a>, buying fuel or fixing broken heaters starting Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n

The state is opening its annual Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program<\/a>, or LIHEAP, Dec. 3, a month later than usual<\/a>. The 43-day federal government shutdown delayed funding for LIHEAP<\/a>, which states rely on to administer the program.\n <\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released $3.7 billion in funding for LIHEAP to states<\/a> last week. Pennsylvania received over $208 million<\/a>, which the state estimates will serve more than 300,000 households.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you need help with utility bills, if you need to make sure that your heat is on during the coldest months of the year \u2026 we need folks to apply,\u201d said Brandon Cwalina, a spokesperson with Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Human Services. \u201cWe certainly want to keep folks safe and warm in their homes during the coldest months of the year.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

State employees processed some pre-season applications during the delay and plan to issue payments to approved pre-season applicants first. The earliest payments will be issued in around two weeks, Cwalina said.\n<\/p>\n

Patricia King, manager of community engagement at PECO, recommends applying as soon as possible once the program opens Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the funding is gone, it\u2019s gone, and it won\u2019t come back until next year,\u201d King said.\n<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania households who heat their homes with electricity or natural gas were protected from shutoffs during the LIHEAP delay<\/a>. Utilities agreed to halt terminations for nonpayment during November, a month before the state\u2019s winter shutoff moratorium<\/a> kicks in.\n<\/p>\n

But families that use deliverable fuels, such as heating oil, were left without assistance.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":327271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,82623,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,49740],"class_list":{"0":"post-421569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-liheap","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115655104618875527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}