LIHEAP: 40 years of Implementation

Introduction

“When you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 million American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.” (Dingell, 2010)

Congressman John Dingell presided over the Subcommittee on Energy and Power during the 1970s energy crisis. As Chairman, Dingell played a key role in crafting energy policy during this period and was instrumental in the passage of several major energy bills, including the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (H.R. 6860 – 94th Congress, 1975-1976), 1975-1976), which established fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, and the National Energy Act of 1978 (H.R.8444 – 95th Congress, 1977-1978), which provided incentives for the development of renewable energy and conservation measures. Dingell’s work on these and other energy bills helped shape U.S. energy policy through the following decades.

In 1981, at the far end of that decade, Congressman Dingell, now Democratic Co-Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, brings to the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981(H.R.6955 – 97th Congress, 1981-1982) a plan to offset energy costs for low-income Americans by creating the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) a state block grant subsidy. This program was based on a pilot program in Maine that was put together during the first winters of the oil embargo and proved helpful for people who could not afford to keep up with the rising costs of heating a home in winter. (U.S. to Help Maine on Winter proofing Of Homes for Poor, 1973)

In this paper, I will look at the implementation of LIHEAP through an interpretive lens, coaxing out what historical, economic, and political pressures existed in the formulation of this block grant social subsidy. LIHEAP, while being lauded as a worthwhile program by policymakers, is also underutilized at the state level and often criticized for creating more hurdles for beneficiaries than avenues of access. If, as Foucault suggests, “Each society has its regime of truth.”, then what socially constructed truth created LIHEAP, a great idea program that has never been implemented correctly in over 40 years? (Foucault, 1980)

History and Policy

OPEC Embargo

In 1973 and continuing through the following year, Middle Eastern OPEC nation-states decided to cease importing oil to the United States in a flex of muscle to bend foreign policy and economic influence in Israel after the Yum Kippur war. The $2.2 billion emergency request by then President Richard Nixon for purposes of bolstering the Israeli military was seen as an overreach by OPEC nations and they ceased exports to the United States and other Israel-supporting nations. (Milestones: 1969–1976 – Office of the Historian, 2023) (Corbett, 2013)

That measure by OPEC nations laid bare a series of economic and ecological unfortunate decisions by the USA that only encouraged runaway prices, stagflation, and a real national security problem. The United States was balancing fuel costs at home, support to Israel, the shrinking influence of the Seven Sisters, and OPEC nations which sought to pressure the Western while also making deals with Cold War protagonist Russia. (Milestones: 1969–1976 – Office of the Historian, 2023)

This came at a time in economic history when production worldwide began increasing demand which had already caused an annual rising of prices by 10%. Then adding insult to injury, American petroleum production could not bring more oil to market after dominating the industry for generations. The USA began importing oil at ever-increasing numbers. (Alhajji, 2005 as cited in Corbett, 2013) When OPEC nations shut off their oil faucet, the price of an oil barrel went from $2.90 to $11.65 between January and March 1974 (Merrill, 2007 as cited in Corbett, 2013) causing a domino effect across the American economy. That effect was blunted somewhat by instituting a petroleum reserve just prior to the OPEC decision, however by 1974, the average American was beginning to feel economic pain, and those at the bottom of the economic ladder were in peril. (The LIHEAP Clearinghouse, 2022)

In November of 1973 President Nixon’s administration, after squandering time believing OPEC was just a nuisance, delaying conservation measures, refusing to cooperate with other affected European nations, and generally threatening an already battle-ready OPEC brotherhood with military action, finally decided to act diplomatically by sending Henry Kissinger in after getting mired in an incident at the Watergate Hotel. (Milestones: 1969–1976 – Office of the Historian, 2023) (Corbett, 2013) (Schwartz, 2019) Kissinger then proceeds to make a deal with Saudi Arabia, ending the embargo, the Yum Kippur War with Israel, and completely beholding the United States’ economic policy to the whims of Middle Eastern politics. (Grandin, 2015)

I will continue to revisit historical events to provide an interpretation of the implementation of the program because if we are going to understand what the perceived social problem LIHEAP is attempting to mitigate then we need to reconstruct the social, economic, and political factors involved in its creation and recreation. For example, Nixon’s Embargo deal came at the cost of having to finance several Middle Eastern nations’ militaries, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt to provide a cover of international political equity. As of 2018 and 40 years of funding Saudi Arabia, the United States has passed over $50 billion in tax dollars spent on military aid to just that nation alone. (Miller & Miller, 2018) The LIHEAP budget in 2018 was $3.4 billion.

Post-Energy Crisis America

In 1981, John Dingell’s committee brings forth a nationalized version of a pilot program run in Maine during the winters of the OPEC embargo. In 1973 the federal government funded $478,715, ($3.2 million by 2023 standards (CPI Inflation Calculator, 2023)) for a small heat subsidizing program in Maine called Project F.U.E.L, Fuel for the Underheated Elderly and low‐income. The program worked in two ways, 3,000 low-income families received whole house weatherization through local groups including the Maine National Guard and 13 fuel depots stocked with kerosene and cordwood provided subsidized heat fuel to underserved rural communities. (“U.S. To Help Maine on Winter Proofing of Homes for Poor (Published 1973),” 2023)

The program was meant to provide a block grant to states for the purpose of subsidizing heating, then eventually energy costs, for low-income Americans. With the energy crisis still a fresh wound in the culture, a real need was created to bridge the gap of affordability so that households would not go cold in winter, causing a cascade effect of issues. This need was covered by local and federal funding, but in 1980, the newly elected president and Republican congress were about to pass legislation that would radically change how America funded social services. (Low-Income Energy Programs Funding History 1977-2022, 2022)

“We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our National history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people. In the days ahead I will propose removing the roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced productivity. Steps will be taken aimed at restoring the balance between the various levels of government. . . to get government back within its means and to lighten the tax burden. And these will be our first priorities, and on these principles, there will be no compromise.” (Inaugural Address 1981, 2023)

Ronald Regan declared this during his January 1980 inaugural speech, and one year later, congress would bring one of the most widely sweeping changes to the funding of social services as well as reduce the tax burden on top-tier earners and corporations. The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981, which included LIHEAP, turned the focus of the government from individual beneficiaries to state-based social service block grants. (Svahn, n.d.)

The Omnibus Reconciliation Act made major reductions in Medicare, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and other related benefits as well as authorized states to tighten eligibility for funding above what the Federal government already provided in the legislation. (Svahn, n.d.) Reagan’s attempt at defining the social prevailing winds was to construct a new economy by decreasing budget line items to lighten the tax burden. Inevitably, the only burden that was reduced in the budget was social services. These burdens were replaced with several new programs, Head Start, Community Economic Development, Maternal and Childcare block grant, and a host of others that would funnel tax dollars to the states for distribution, with the Federal government relinquishing most of the control. One of those block grants would be LIHEAP with an initial funding of $1.2 billion. (H.R.3982 – 97th Congress, 1982)

In its first year, LIHEAP served over 750,000 people nationally, providing money for income-eligible households in a limited number of northern states for winter heating. In 1984, LIHEAP was combined with the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) under the Energy Security Act which expanded the program to include weatherization services. In 1986, LIHEAP was amended to include cooling assistance, in addition to heating assistance, adding all 50 states to the program. ‌ (H.R.4421 – 99th Congress, 1986) In 1994, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Amendments authorized states to use up to 15% of their LIHEAP funds for low-cost residential weatherization and other energy-related home repairs. (H.R.4085 – 103rd Congress, 1994) In 2005, the Deficit Reduction Act provided $2.2 billion in funding for LIHEAP over five years, which was an increase from the previous funding level. (S.2320 – 109th Congress, 2006) Thus funding was increased in increments over the following years until 2018.

In 2018, the Trump administration aimed to cut the program completely to save $3.4 billion in the budget commenting that the program itself was fraught with fraud and abuses. Pushback from 45 Senators included the fact that it continued to maintain broad bi-partisan support because it provided needed help for low-income individuals to maintain stability. (Urban, 2018) LIHEAP managed to avoid the cutting block, and in 2022 President Biden encouraged Congress to increase funding to the program as post-COVID emergency funding would be drying up which passed increasing the 2023 budget. (Weiser, 2023)

Returning to Reagan’s economic manifesto’s argument against inflation, “It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike.” Was it unchecked social services causing inflation at the end of the 1970s or were the fertile conditions for runaway military spending the de facto cause? With history’s 20/20 vision, we know some truths to be certain, military spending in 1980 was $143 billion and by 1990 it was $325 billion. In 2018, the military budget was $682 billion. (U.S. Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2023, 2023) In the years between its inception in 1981, the LIHEAP program began with a budget of $1.2 billion and was nearly cut when its budget reached $3.4 billion. In what ways are we seeing the symbolic ills of society constructed in our institutions of power? In what ways did the United States construct its global economic and political strength in the 1980s and how has that changed? Is America’s 2023 cultural ideas of strength symbolized in the federal budget of this country when its leadership considers $3.4 billion for its own people a bridge too far, but $48 billion to another country’s military budget acceptable?

In the analysis portion of this paper, I will discuss how the entirety of the LIHEAP program as a part of the landmark 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation Act was a social constructivist attempt to redraw the ways in which the government implemented social programs. The context or origin story for LIHEAP is central to interpreting if the implementation of the program today. Is this funding still fitting the needs of the society it was looking to construct? 40 years have passed and maybe the taxpayers deserve a second chance at defining society especially since the world today looks very little like the world of the 1980s.

Stakeholders and Current Policy in Practice

The current LIHEAP program provides block grants for individual states, reservations, and tribal communities according to means-testing that is often on par with the supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), SSI, and Housing Assistance. The means-testing is based on each individual state’s management of the program itself, varying eligibility from 150% to 200% over the federal definition of poverty. Like SNAP, in most states, if households qualify for SSI or TANF, they also are eligible for LIHEAP assistance. (Barusch, 2018)

To comprehend the LIHEAP program and the stakeholders involved, it is imperative to consider that each state, territory, and indigenous reservation has the autonomy to run its own program as it deems appropriate. The federal government distributes funds to the states based on an algorithm that considers the estimated costs of heating and cooling, the number of eligible households, and the affordability gap for home energy. It is important to note that the goals, entitlement criteria, perceived benefits, and administrative structure may not be the same for each stakeholder. (Barusch, 2018) Moreover, even within each state, there may be multiple stakeholders with varying needs and requirements, depending on regional and federal factors. For instance, beneficiaries in New Mexico may require different weatherization and funding than those in Massachusetts. To illustrate these variations, this article will analyze a sample of states and their respective LIHEAP implementation systems. (The LIHEAP Clearinghouse, 2022)

In New England, Massachusetts has one of the larger LIHEAP budgets of the region with a total of $322.9 million available to be distributed of which $483,851 was passed on to tribes situated within the state. Of the total eligible population of 832,593 people, only 134,180 were served in 2021, with only a 16% effective rate in signing up participants. For most states, like Massachusetts, unused funding is a nebulous thing, never making it to the citizen and sometimes never making it back to the Federal Government. Income eligibility in the state is $75,201 which is much higher than most and the reason is a combination of higher costs of living which include one of the higher rates for electricity in the nation. 83% of funding goes directly to heating assistance, with 4% going to weatherization of which 8881 households received an average of $1464 for upgrades to their domicile. The state does not run a separate crisis assistance program, instead, a fast-track application option is available for those who qualify. Of the households served an average benefit of $869 per calendar year was provided to pay for heating costs. (HHS | Department of Health and Human Services, 2023)

In the Southwest, New Mexico has a LIHEAP fund of $49.6 million of which $412,015 goes to tribal populations. 63,041 households are served by LIHEAP which is about 29% of the eligible population. The total budget is distributed amongst heating assistance (27%), cooling assistance (15%), weatherization (5%), and crisis assistance (6%) with an average benefit of about $300 per household. Only 410 households benefitted from weatherization at an average cost of $5806, which is much higher than most states and the average income eligibility was $39,300 almost half of what it is in Massachusetts. Also, to note, New Mexico has one of the smallest administrative budgets, only 2%, compared with the average of example states of about 8%. (HHS | Department of Health and Human Services, 2023)

Louisiana lies nestled in the South, originally not a part of the original LIHEAP heating program, but as cooling was added, so were southern states. Despite the weather, Louisiana uses 13% of its budget on heating and 23% on cooling, with a huge portion of the total budget going towards crisis assistance (46%) and only 8% on weatherization. The total funding for the state in 2021 was $96.2 million with a total of 588,611 households eligible, but only 11% of those homes were served (66,107). In Louisiana, the income eligibility requirement for a 4-person household was $47,680, higher than New Mexico’s program. Nearly 60,000 homes were provided with cooling assistance at an average yearly benefit of $679 and 15,000 homes were provided with heating assistance at an average benefit of $516. (HHS | Department of Health and Human Services, 2023)

Out West, California has an eligible budget of $403.4 million and nearly 3.5 million eligible households, however, only 5% are served by LIHEAP, 170,381 families. The state uses a majority of its budget, 44%, on crisis assistance, 22% on heating, 6% on cooling, and 12% on weatherization of which 8096 homes received an average of $6070 for improvements. Income eligibility for LIHEAP in California is $56,102 for a household of 4 people and crisis assistance served 62,650 households with an average of $736. It should be noted that through the COVID pandemic, all states received additional funding through LIHEAP. In California, that additional funding took the average $736 and brought it to $1429, nearly doubling it for those years. For the average heating and cooling beneficiary, the state paid approximately $400 per year. (HHS | Department of Health and Human Services, 2023)

One thing all four states have in common is a remarkable underutilization of the LIHEAP program. States have had over 40 years to promote and encourage their eligible citizens into participating in this benefit and still, year after year, federal dollars go unused or underused. Considering the home energy affordability gap which measures the changes in home energy costs relative to a fixed year, 2011, we can analyze if the need for LIHEAP has disappeared. (FSC’s HEAG – Affordability Gap Data, 2022)

New England, as a regional example, paid $1.17 billion more in energy costs in 2022 than in 2011 and those numbers repeat around the region with the West Coast paying double the energy costs while the South only pays a moderate percentage more. In every case, regionally or within the states themselves, there is no LIHEAP program that receives more than 30% participation while all regions and states have increased energy costs along with the costs of living. (FSC’s HEAG – Affordability Gap Data, 2022)

Criticisms of the program have included the convoluted ways in which households need to become eligible, with some states narrowing the application time to a few weeks while others have open enrollment. Some states, like New Jersey and Massachusetts, roll out the program with other benefits like SSI and SNAP, others like California put most of their efforts into crisis assistance funding and do not easily provide access through other routes. In all four state cases, the 15% allotted budget to weatherization was not fulfilled. (Graham, 2022) In Pennsylvania, Rep. Robert Matzie in 2022 introduced state legislation that would force the state to spend all its DHS monies, including LIHEAP, every year, holding nothing in reserve as people in the state are not getting assistance due to antiquated rules and not covering cooling costs, despite having a federal mandate. (Rep. Robert Matzie, 2022)

In February of 2023, Senator Markey and Congressman Bowman reintroduced legislation to solve critical issues with the 40-year-old LIHEAP program. Some of the program changes would include increasing funding to $40 billion to ensure no household has to pay more than 3% of its income to energy costs. Also, minimizing barriers to the state’s application process and funding the administrative costs required to enroll people. They also suggest that eligible households can use LIHEAP to prevent shutoff, as already used in California, and to prevent late fees which can often overburden low-income families. Finally, there is now language to encourage climate change mitigation programs and increase the use of the WAP weatherization funds at a community level. (Markey, 2023)

LIHEAP, as a block grant subsidy, has a diverse range of stakeholders, including federal, state, and local entities, whose unique needs necessitate various solutions. LIHEAP serves individuals across all 50 states, providing heating and cooling support to regions ranging from Ohio to New Mexico, and offering both emergency and consistent subsidizing of bills for eligible families with different income levels, dependent on the cost of living and economic factors in each state. Despite the program’s capacity to receive additional funding and responsibility, as advocated by lawmakers such as Sen. Markey, LIHEAP remains underutilized, revealing a consistent theme.

Analysis

LIHEAP was created as a part of a restructuring of social services inside the 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation Act and the political will to make those drastic changes makes sense only when we consider the socio-political culture of the decade. In 2023, the culture of 1980 Reagan’s America is 40 years older, and its political will to maintain these old social constructs may no longer exist. Jean Baudrillard wrote of post-Reagan socially constructed America,

” In Reagan, a system of values that were formerly effective turns into something ideal and imaginary. The image of America becomes imaginary for Americans themselves… This transformation of spontaneous confidence into paradoxical confidence and an achieved utopia into an imaginary hyperbole seems to me to mark a decisive turning-point.” (Baudrillard, 1989)

If we can interpret the era of LIHEAPs origin as a political reaction to perceived weaknesses in the decade before, then are we in a Post-Reagan social constructivist era? If so, how does that change the implementation of necessary social programs, like LIHEAP? How do programs like LIHEAP stay accountable to the people it was meant to serve when socioeconomic and political climates change our constructs of society?

Interpretive Framework

The reason why I have chosen to assess LIHEAP through an interpretive framework is, just as Baudrillard insinuates, that the concepts of success and failure are imagined by the network of power that is currently maintaining the status quo. Foucault argues that “Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.” (Foucault, 1970) If power exists as the connections that form the structures of society and truth is the expression of that power structure, then revisiting policy, like LIHEAP, is essential to the accountability portion of the social contract as it evolves over time. (Barusch, 2018)

In American politics, accountability is primarily a normative concept that serves as a set of standards to evaluate the behavior of public services and servants. It is often viewed as a virtue, like a sense of patriotic responsibility. However, accountability is an essentially contested and contestable concept, lacking a consensus about standards for accountable behavior and varying between roles, times, places, and speakers. (Koppell, 2003; Dubnick, 2005 as cited in Bovens, et al.,2008). This paper will use the Bovens, Schillemans, and Hart interpretive analysis tool to provide a complete view using the democratic, constitutional, and learning formats. (Bovens, et al., 2008) In this way, we can interpret if the past has been held accountable to the future by looking at the 40-year implementation of LIHEAP through multiple accountability lenses.

Implementation Analysis

Democratic Interpretive Framework

In Bovens et al., the central criterion to the democratic perspective is “the degree to which an accountability arrangement or regime enables democratically legitimized bodies to monitor and evaluate executive behavior and to induce executive actors to modify that behavior in accordance with their preferences.” (Bovens, et al., 2008) For LIHEAP, is the government’s implementation of the program based on legitimate stakeholders being informed about the execution and consequences of the program? Are there accountability forums and mechanisms in place with legitimate standards of eligibility, entitlement, and consistency of the benefit? Is the system itself providing enough incentive for the executors to commit themselves to the purpose of the program, which is to subsidize energy costs to low-income people? (Bovens, et al., 2008) (Barusch, 2018)

LIHEAP, as discussed in the previous chapter, is executed on the state level with individual eligibility requirements varying wildly from region to region and despite having a process in which reporting occurs up and down the system, true comparative analysis can only occur on the state level. Therefore Federal, legitimate, stakeholders are truly not being informed about how it is being executed nor the consequences of different eligibility requirements on the implementation. It is clear from the history and policy in practice that there are no accountability standards as currently, no state meets the required weatherization standards, nor do they reach any real level of adoption despite the numerous eligible households.

From a social constructionist perspective, is the Reagan era low tax, state-controlled social services, and massive military response to the Cold War Soviet communist state still relevant in 2023? As referenced in the history of LIHEAP, the entirety of the 1981 Reagan economic plan was a response to a perceived weakness in the American economy stemming from the OPEC energy crisis. However, there was far more at play causing negative economic outcomes besides energy costs, like a ballooning military budget and debts from Soviet proxy wars. (Corbett, 2013) Military debt was, in the 1980s, considered a noble debt that was spent to defeat the undeniable enemy of the American way of life, Communism. Social debt, money that went directly to the people of this county, was perceived as economic social control. (Decter, 1991) As Regan illustrates through his symbolic economic truth, the debt of the pre-1980s social contract hampers all forms of economic American life, therefore in the 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation Act, he renegotiates that contract. (Inaugural Address 1981, 2023)

The implementation of LIHEAP over the last four decades has shown that it was not created as an equitable subsidy to all low-income people. Instead, because of control measures at the state level, it was a symbolic benefit, one that in a 1980s Reaganomic Utopia, would never be required due to rampant market-driven prosperity. All things considered, nobody would ever need LIHEAP because wages would be competitive, energy costs would be low, living expenses would be only a fraction of wages, and people would have a disposable income to go purchase things with. (Decter, 1991) As Reagan implores to the American public at his inauguration, “All must share in the productive work of this ”new beginning,” and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America, at peace with itself and the world.” (Inauguration 1981, 2023)

Foucault writes about Reagan’s Neoliberalism using “the market economy and the typical analyses of the market economy to decipher non-market relationships and wider social phenomena” and to measure all things in a form of risk-based analysis according to the market. (Garrett, 2018) Without even discussing the validity of the program today, this type of accountability measure and reporting is the antithesis of democratic framework analysis and fails on that alone. (Bovens, et al, 2018) Even still, in 2023, the budget for LIHEAP was raised yet again signifying a possibility that Reagan’s 1981 promise did not come true.

Constitutional Interpretive Framework

More in line with conservative Federalism, the constitutional perspective, according to Bovens, is entirely concerned with the prevention of tyranny. This form of accountability is aligned with the equilibrium of power which is shared among stakeholders that move far beyond the government. In this sense, accountability is defined as countervailing pressure either by audit, judiciary, or other arrangements in which to ‘keep them honest’. (Bovens, et al, 2008)

As written, the act that created LIHEAP and the following changes left no mechanism of evaluation or investigation into the execution of the funding at the state level. While beneficiaries are put through a series of means testing for eligibility, the state and federal government has no real watchdog department that can penalize states for lack of participation. (H.R.3982, 2023) Also, there are varying ways in which the participating states manage the funding itself, for example, Massachusetts does not publically publish where unspent funding goes, and Pennsylvania, according to Rep. Matzie, retains millions of dollars for rainy day funds. (Rep. Robert Matzie, 2022) In truth, if one were to search for a LIHEAP monitoring group or energy nonprofit working with LIHEAP, one would get results for each state, separated from each other and acting more as partners to the government than as adversaries for truth as intended by the constitutional framework.

“Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising, and it is the same effect that is achieved -a commitment to a scenario, whether it be a political or an advertising scenario. Reagan’s is both at once… Now that society has been definitively turned into an enterprise, everything is in the synopsis of performance and enterprise, and its leaders must produce all the signs of the advertising ‘look’.“ (Baudrillard, 1989)

This illusion of credibility Baudrillard speaks about regarding the post-Reagan era of politics is also written in the illusion of accountability in the LIHEAP program. LIHEAP is a simple goal with a common basis for entitlement that is repeated in other programs whose mechanism for financing is so broad as to have more than 50 different avenues of distribution and yet, it manages to not reach any measure of successful implementation among any.

The illusion of control, accountability, and legitimacy is a part of the social construct of power itself. “Illusions are not something external to power, illusions are something that is absolutely immanent to power. And what’s more, they are one of the conditions for power’s existence and one of the effects of its exercise.” Foucault answers the question of where the creation of the gossamer of legitimacy originates and for him it is part of the product of power itself. (Foucault, 1977) As the turbulent 1970s ended, Reagan brought to his first term as President an illusion of competence, but a paradoxical competence, one that relied on the truth of ‘not being the other guys’ rather than being the expression of competence itself.

Berger and Luckman discuss the construct of reality as being not just a personal process but an intersubjective space between individuals, systems, and organizations within a society. The OPEC oil crisis was not just a governmental trauma, but a trauma that filtered down through all parts of American socioeconomic society. Its effect was felt in the culture of the age and continues to ripple through time. This type of cultural effect, Berger and Luckman call intersubjective sedimentation. “Intersubjective sedimentation can be called truly social only when it has been objectivated in a sign system of one kind or another, that is when the possibility of reiterated objectification of the shared experiences arises”. In the case of Reagan and his perceived competency, the intersubjective sedimentation in the collective trauma of the energy crisis was the paradox on which to build an illusion of ‘being better’ than what came before. (Berger & Luckmann, 1966)

In the terms of Constitutional legitimacy and accountability, the era in which created LIHEAP was defined by its market-based accountable neoliberalism best defined by Lionel Stoléru, “doctrines. . . can lead us either to a policy aiming to eliminate poverty or to a policy seeking to limit the gap between rich and poor… [That is] the frontier between absolute poverty and relative poverty.”(Stoleru, as quoted in Ballast Magazine, 2014) Reagan’s policies were entirely the latter and with landslide support, the 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation budget placed the constitutional legitimacy of LIHEAP in the market itself, assessing eligibility on costs of living, paid out in most cases directly to energy companies, and financed completely by the whims of congress and a budget pen. The crisis of tyranny being imprisoned was, as Reagan himself put it, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (Innuagural Address 1981, 2023) In LIHEAPS’s case, the social construct was for it to never be used as the use of social services by citizens symbolizes economic tyranny. In this way, the Constitutional accountability of LIHEAP is functioning correctly in its current implementation.

Learning Interpretive Framework

In Bovens, the Learning perspective of accountability is considered ‘effective governance’ as it is a systemic embodiment of a consistent feedback loop, where public bodies and stakeholders are given a regular chance to provide information and dialogue with state officeholders and agencies. With the focus on attempting to reach a ‘more perfect union’ regarding the policy or program, the learning framework provides a push and pull between stakeholders with the continual renewal of the program for optimal performance. (Bovens, et al., 2008)

Again, we are faced with the fact that each individual state, territory, or indigenous group has the responsibility to execute the LIHEAP program in whatever way they choose. In Massachusetts, 21 agencies assist residents in applying for the program as well as an online portal. Each individual agency has its own accountability program. (Learn about Home Energy Assistance – LIHEAP, 2021) The state executor was unreachable for comment on the accountability of the program on the state level. The Department of Health and Human Services is the Federal contact for LIHEAP, which has the following advice to those who have complaints: “Our office is not the right place to file a complaint against a utility company. We do not have any say over how utility companies do business. Get in touch with your state’s public utility commission to find out how to file a complaint.” (LIHEAP FAQs for Consumers, 2020) At the very top of the accountability pyramid, one could possibly reach the DHHS fraud division, which collects and processes complaints from across the department. This, however, is not a dialogue as much as a complaint line and therefore does not qualify as any form of learning framework. (Bovens, 2008)

Even still, how does the dialectic framework of accountability work when the legitimate stakeholders are all laboring under the same curated and controlled perspective? If we are collectively forming our realities through our interactions with each other, our systems, and our culture then what happens when our collective truths are swayed by marketing, media, and public content? (Johnson & Rhodes, 2023)

“The smile of immunity, the smile of advertising: ‘This country is good. I am good. We are the best’. It is also Reagan’s smile -the culmination of the self-satisfaction of the entire American …With this smile Reagan obtains a much wider consensus than any that could be achieved by a Kennedy with mere reason or political intelligence… No idea -not even the nation’s moral values in their entirety -could ever have produced such a result.” (Baudrillard, 1989)

When looking at the four test subject states, there is a trend represented that moves LIHEAP away from its initial purpose of subsidizing energy costs for low-income households and using it for emergency interventions when households have already failed to afford or come in as indigent to energy needs. (HHS | Department of Health and Human Services, 2023) This trend aligns even more than the original program with Reagan-era beliefs about social services and programs as it no longer acts as an economic subsidy against rising energy costs and higher costs of living but instead simply provides a safety net when households and individuals have already failed. It, like Reagan, assumes that the prosperity of low taxes and deregulation would reduce the need for economic subsidies, therefore a primarily emergency but low participation rate is exactly what would happen in a perfectly functioning society under Reaganomics. However, Congress has continually had to raise the LIHEAP budget over the last 40 years.

During the Trump administration, LIHEAP was both threatened to be cut and then nearly defunded for COVID pandemic funding offset. In both cases, legitimate stakeholders from Congress and the states spoke at length about the importance of the program to help fund energy costs for low-income Americans. (Associated Press, 2023) Senator Markey and Representative Bowman even went as far as to call energy access a human right. (Markey, 2023) In no case was the inefficiency of the program mentioned, only that the president felt LIHEAP was fraught with fraud and that Congress believed he was wrong. There is, much like in the constitutional framework, a totality of legitimacy in the LIHEAP program built out of the perception that either the states themselves are being excellent executors or that the program itself is self-regulating by design.

Foucault speaks to the absoluteness of institutional presence, “On this level of legitimation, the reflective integration of discrete institutional processes reaches its ultimate fulfillment. A whole world is created. All the lesser legitimating theories are viewed as special perspectives on phenomena that are aspects of this world.” (Foucault, 1977) In interpreting the learning framework for the implementation of LIHEAP program, the assumed legitimacy of the state’s administration is absolute. The program is in all states and territories, the eligibility for benefits is clear, the energy stakeholders are paid, and the financing exists. Does that make it functional even with low rates of participation despite statistical need? Only if the goal of the program is to provide as little benefit as possible, which aligns with the stated Reagan purpose of reconstruction.

Discussion

Considering LIHEAP in implementation, what would a modern construct of this program look like? Current LIHEAP was created out of a major reorganization of federal social services whose impetus was a reaction to the shared cultural trauma of helplessness stemming from the OPEC energy crisis. It was also a decentralization of power from the Federal government to the states, which was seen to provide more freedom and better accountability to American citizens to reduce social welfare costs. The program was also a form of resiliency left baked into the response of government from the energy crisis, which was utilized during the COVID pandemic to keep households running during quarantine. Finally, from an economic standpoint, LIHEAP is a direct government payment to energy companies, from distribution to natural resources, preventing energy poverty; in most states LIHEAP payments are made directly to energy companies or are provided as vouchers to households only payable to their providers.

Many of the same conditions still exist in 2023. The American public is still energy conscious but unlike 1981, the collective trauma is focused on climate change and a shared future everyone is part of constructing. Today’s energy crisis is a lack of chips for renewable energy projects and even with cultural tensions on progress, Americans have and continue to turn away from petroleum and coal forms of energy. (Ross, 2013) The devolution of the federal welfare system has progressed unabated since 1981 and the general population continues to favor local and state executors of policy over the Federal government. (Rendleman & Rogowski, 2022) At face value, none of these issues can be interpreted as requiring change from the LIHEAP program as it exists.

There is one major cultural shift since 1980s, the technology of energy production and consumption. Five major energy technologies have become publicly accessible and whose adoption has been increasingly more visible: Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Electric vehicles, and Smart grid technology. As of this year, renewable energy is responsible for just over 19% of total energy production in the United States. (U.S Energy Information Administration, 2023) Ronald Reagan removed the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House in 1986. (Biello, 2010)

Returning to Foucault’s new framework, one of focusing on the resistance points or chemical catalysts that could enlighten us on a new social construct of LIHEAP, do we begin by discarding the program in its entirety? During the Covid pandemic, LIHEAP acted as a major support system for emergency funds for energy costs across the country. For many states, including three of the four test states, emergency LIHEAP is most of the administration of the program. (The LIHEAP Clearinghouse, 2022) There are additionally water and sewer programs that mimic LIHEAP in several states, including Massachusetts and California, whose goal is also as emergency funding support to households unable to pay their bills. (Learn about Home Energy Assistance – LIHEAP, 2021) From a resiliency perspective, LIHEAP and its sister emergency programs do the job they are supposed to, and to that, I would suggest they remain funded and active, perhaps even combined.

From a social constructivist standpoint, there is a growing trend among Americans to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and minimize their electric bills. In this context, the decision to leave state and federal funds unspent appears counterproductive, particularly given the opportunity to invest in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. By supporting the construction of solar and wind farms, it is possible to offset the energy costs faced by low-income communities, resulting in greater efficiency and a reduction in wasteful spending. Therefore, failing to make such investments can be seen as an imprudent and ineffective use of public resources as Pennsylvania Representative Matzie pushed in his bill. ‌(Rep. Robert Matzie, 2022)

The WAP portion of the LIHEAP budget and the underspending by states could be used to pay down the energy poverty in this country. Energy poverty refers to the condition where a household lacks or has limited access to basic energy services like heating, cooling, lighting, and usage of appliances, which is often due to a combination of various factors, such as low income, rising utility rates, and the presence of inefficient buildings and appliances. The economy of technology guarantees a future where fossil fuel energy will be even more expensive due to fewer and fewer consumers, leaving only the most vulnerable left with inefficient homes and appliances that are using expensive means of power. With renewable energy, there are now more ways for vulnerable populations to be left out, like tax programs for early adoption usually only benefitting high-income homeowners. (McGee & Greiner, 2019)

McGee and Greiner’s study on environmental justice and energy poverty suggests that policymakers should adopt economic tools that aim to address both inequality and emissions reduction. By doing so, they argue that the implementation of renewable energy resources will be incentivized, while the populations that are most vulnerable to energy poverty will be protected. (McGee & Greiner, 2019) Moreover, we finally can end the cash highway that leads from American taxpayer wallets right into petroleum, gas, and coal company bank accounts. Let us not forget that because of the OPEC negotiations by Kissinger, the United States became beholden to funding the military of several nations in the Middle East. By unplugging low-income communities from the endless cycle of monthly home energy costs we can provide a net gain in income for American families and begin to heal from the economic trauma of the energy crisis. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2016)

Finally, if LIHEAP is to continue to function in an ever-changing world, it is going to require a method of accountability that unites the states under some federal control. It should be unacceptable that states are not using money that was earmarked for Americans to subsidize the costs of energy in their homes. The Bovens three-part interpretive analysis showed one basic challenge in all three frameworks, a lack of accountability to the goals, beneficiaries, and execution of the program at the state level. We no longer live in the 1980’s and there needs to be a better dialogue between citizens, states, and the legitimate stakeholders at the federal level who can make the changes to the program.

Policy Position and Conclusion

Stepping back from the interpretation analysis and recalibrating with the goals of LIHEAP, we can clearly see how collectively, the people of the USA in 2023 are perceiving the roles and needs of this program implementation differently than when it was created in 1981. This new social construct, at minimum, requires LIHEAP to send a new blueprint of the mission priorities for a new generation, one that has far more inspiration to end dependence on OPEC oil and has the sustainability tools to get the job done. Perhaps it’s an entirely different matter, one of control.

Looking at the father of LIHEAP, Democratic Senator John Dingell’s quote “When you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 million American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.” he speaks to the controlling of Americans being the longest part of the process of policy-making. (Dingell, 2010) In this case, Senator Dingell was talking about the Affordable Care Act which expanded medical coverage to millions of Americans. Like LIHEAP, the ACA was also implemented differently by each state and had a block grant structure. (Center for American Progress, 2019)

If Senator Dingell perceived a change in the social construct between 1981 and 2010, where control mattered more for health insurance and matter much less for energy subsidies, then it is time for Congress to revisit LIHEAP and interpret the program for the needs of 2023. Maybe Senator Dingell is right, perhaps it is all about control and the states have attempted to levy far too much control over applicants and eligible citizens leading to low implementation. In some small way, the newest legislation attempted by Senator Markey and Congressman Bowman is moving toward those ends, cutting away some of the control structures in hopes that states use the money in more socially conscious ways, like energy efficiency. (Markey, 2023) In 2023 we know that if all low-income Americans are provided with renewable energy justice, then the United States would be actively solving the problems of the 1970s energy crisis, not just kicking it down the line for 40 years as LIHEAP has done.

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