‘…cost gap looms as a crisis for the poor, experts warn, since the federal government has cut financing for energy assistance programs.
‘“We’re concerned about a public health problem if there isn’t additional money found,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association. “We’ve really never been in a situation before where we’re going into the winter with very high prices” for heating oil, he said, adding that the highest prices tended to come near the middle or end of the season.
‘The use of heating oil, which rose after World War II as a replacement for coal, has been on a long decline. As the use of virtually every other fuel has increased, the number of households that use heating oil has dropped from about 20 percent in 1975 to roughly 7 percent today, spurred by new home construction and population shifts to the West and South, closer to natural gas fields and pipelines. Government incentives for installing insulation also cut consumption of heating oil.
‘For decades, the prices of oil and gas moved virtually in tandem, but in recent years, vast increases in American gas supplies have made gas decisively cheaper.’
—By DIANE CARDWELL and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
