Kelly, Gallego Respond to New Report Confirming Arizona Is Shortchanged on Federal Energy Assistance

Kelly and Gallego introduced the LIHEAP Parity Act of 2025 to fix outdated formula

Today, Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego responded to a new report from Duke University's Heat Policy Innovation Hub finding that an outdated federal assistance formula is leaving hot-weather states like Arizona systematically underfunded under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), even as extreme heat drives record energy costs for low-income families.

The report finds that historic underfunding of the LIHEAP program means that fewer than 20 percent of income-eligible households nationwide receive assistance each year. However, decades-old provisions in the LIHEAP statute disproportionately benefit cold-weather states while Arizona and other states receive the lowest funding per eligible household. The analysis concludes that current funding does not reflect today's energy realities and recommends aligning LIHEAP allocations with each state's share of low-income home energy expenditures as the statute originally intended.

Last year, Kelly and Gallego introduced the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Parity Act of 2025 to fix this outdated formula and ensure federal home energy assistance is distributed equitably and reflects current energy needs.

"Arizona families are living through longer, hotter summers, and their energy bills reflect that reality," said Kelly. "But federal energy assistance is still being distributed using a formula written decades ago that doesn't reflect today's climate or costs. This report makes it clear that reform is overdue. Our LIHEAP Parity Act makes a straightforward fix so that federal energy assistance goes where it's actually needed and helps more families keep the A/C running during dangerous heat events."

"In Arizona, access to affordable cooling is a matter of life and death. But the formula that determines how much federal energy assistance our state receives leaves Arizona and other hot-weather states behind, and this report confirms it," said Gallego. "Our LIHEAP Parity Act would fix this injustice and help ensure families, seniors, and Arizonans with disabilities can afford to keep the A/C on and stay safe."

Background:

LIHEAP is the federal government's primary program for helping low-income households pay their energy bills. However, outdated provisions mean that LIHEAP funding unfairly benefits cold-weather states. These provisions were meant to ease the transition to a fairer formula, but instead, they've locked in long-term funding imbalances that disadvantage hot-weather states like Arizona. In 2023, less than five percent of eligible households in Arizona received LIHEAP assistance, whereas almost 90 percent of Michigan's eligible households were served by this life-saving program.

Kelly and Gallego's LIHEAP Parity Act removes outdated "hold-harmless" provisions that have distorted how regular LIHEAP funds are distributed across states, locking in preferences for colder regions at the expense of hotter states like Arizona. The bill amends the underlying formula to ensure funding is based on current energy needs and usage-so resources go where they're most needed.

Specifically, the bill:

• Strikes the 1980s-era hold-harmless provisions from the LIHEAP allocation formula.
• Requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to publicly disclose the data sources used in the formula and how often they're updated.

This legislation builds on Kelly's broader efforts to strengthen the LIHEAP program. In 2025, Kelly also led Arizona lawmakers in demanding answers from HHS after the department abruptly terminated the federal staff responsible for administering the program-jeopardizing access to assistance ahead of Arizona's hottest months.

Read the full report here. Click here to read the full text of the LIHEAP Parity Act.