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Heating Season is here, along with rising prices
Home heating season is here and fuel prices are rising in Maine.
The news is bad, especially for Maine?s most vulnerable citizens.
This is Representative Abigail Griffin, of Levant, with the Weekly Republican Radio Address.
I don?t have to remind listeners that heating oil prices were almost two dollars a gallon less when President Biden took office, and made good on his promise to move away from oil and natural gas.
The result has been an unprecedented rise in the cost of everything we need to live in Maine.
Prices for groceries, goods, services and virtually every item that we consume have shot through the roof because they are tied to the price of oil and gas.
Mainers are facing the highest inflation in decades.
- Compounded?inflation since?January 2021 still stands at around 14 percent.
- Grocery prices in August rose 13.5%, the largest increase since 1979.
- The average rate on a 30-year fixed loan increased to 6.92% as of Thursday, the highest in 20 years.
- The average Maine Household is paying close to $7,000 more to live in Maine than a year ago.
- Fuel oil has increased 68.8 percent from August 2021 to August 2022.
The attack on oil and gas that fuels price increases is not just a federal effort.
Here in Maine, right after President Biden took office, sixty (60) state Democrat legislators introduced a bill that would have increased gasoline and home heating fuel prices by 40 cents a gallon.
If that bill had passed, it would have put even more pressure on Maine families who are already bracing for a harsh winter in which heating oil is projected to increase more than 17%.
Republicans publicly exposed that bill and it never made it out of committee.
Now heating season is here and rising prices will severely impact those who can least afford it.
Community Action Program agencies have taken in over 20,300 for Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP).
Last year, at this time, the number of applicants taken in was 17,500.
Just this week, a Maine Housing spokesman said:
"We are only gonna be able to help people with a half a tank or three quarters of a tank of oil," he estimated. "Given the price of oil last year, we were able to do about a tank-and-a-half of oil for every eligible household."
That won?t even begin to cover the entire heating season for our most vulnerable friends and neighbors.
House Republicans have been fighting against higher energy costs for Maine consumers and to allow Mainers to keep more of what they earn.
We need your help.
Listeners should ask? are you better off than you were two or even four years ago?
Maybe it is time to think outside the box and support Republican policies if you haven?t done so before.
This has been Rep. Abigail Griffin with the Weekly Republican Radio Address. Thank you for supporting our efforts, listening, subscribing, sharing, and following us on Facebook and Instagram.
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Representative Abigail Griffin
Representative Griffin is a retired teacher and is serving in her first term in the Maine House of Representatives.
She has worked hard to?successfully cosponsor several bills?working collaboratively with her colleagues, including:
LD 84: Resolve, Directing the Department of Health and Human Services To Allow Spouses To Provide Home and Community-based Services to Eligible MaineCare Members,?LD 136: An Act To Establish a Special Education Circuit Breaker Reimbursement Program,?LD 145: An Act To Expand the Membership of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine,?LD 359: An Act To Address Student Hunger with a ?Breakfast after the Bell? Program,?LD 985: An Act To Maintain High School Diploma Standards by Repealing Proficiency-based Diploma Standards,?LD 1263: An Act To Prevent Sexual and Domestic Violence and To Support Survivors, and?LD 1319: An Act To Prohibit Employer Disciplinary Action against Firefighters and Emergency Medical Services Persons Responding to an Emergency.
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