Holding the line on home heating costs

Gasoline prices may have retreated from their summer highs, but this winter New Yorkers will be in for a second energy shock. In the past year, the price of home heating oil in New York has risen sharply.
New York City residents are now paying an average of $4.36 a gallon for home heating oil, a 51.8 percent increase according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. At these prices, the average consumer will pay about $3,800 to heat their home from November to April this year.
There is a real danger that the spike in heating oil prices combined with falling incomes could force senior citizens and working families to choose between heating their homes or buying groceries; staying warm or paying for health care.
Some may attempt to endure dangerously low temperatures in their homes or resort to potentially deadly improvised heating methods, like using their gas stoves as a heating source.
While ordinary New Yorkers struggle, oil companies are cashing in on high energy prices. Exxon Mobil alone reported earning a record $11.5 billion in the first half of this year, marking the company’s third year of unprecedented earnings.
The cost of energy is a nationwide problem in need of a long-term nationwide solution, but the current Washington administration seems uninterested in taking meaningful action to curb windfall oil company profits to assist the consumer.
The presidential candidates of both parties have many proposals to address the crisis, but in the meantime New York State must provide immediate relief to its residents.
In June of this year the State Assembly passed a plan that would help New Yorkers combat the rising cost of home heating by expanding the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) and energy conservation initiatives.
This legislation, which I was proud to co-sponsor, would provide $550 million for affordable heating oil. This money would increase the benefits as part of HEAP and expand eligibility for the program. The Assembly’s enhanced HEAP program would raise the eligibility level to 80 percent of the median family income, meaning a family of four with a household income up to $55,500 could receive HEAP assistance. The Assembly’s plan also invests another $250 million into energy conservation efforts to reduce demand for heating oil in the first place.
These changes would be paid for by collecting revenue from those who have been profiting the most from the recent spike in fuel costs. The Assembly plan includes a two percent gross receipts surcharge on large oil companies and a retroactive measure to recapture windfall profits from big oil companies dating back to 2005, when the sales tax on gasoline was limited to two dollars.
Under the Assembly plan, energy suppliers are prevented from maintaining their windfall profits by passing on the cost of these measures to consumers and face a civil penalty of up to $35,000 per day for any violation of this prohibition.
The continuing rise in the price of home heating oil will create a life-threatening situation for many of our friends and neighbors this winter. Heat in the winter months is an absolute necessity and the Assembly plan to provide additional money for HEAP will ensure that families will not have to choose between eating and freezing.
The plan passed by the Assembly offers a fiscally responsible and fair solution for the problem of high home heating prices.