"I got the temperature down to 65, and I got to keep a jacket on and a couple of sweaters in the house, because I never know when the next oil's gonna come," Olivieri said.
Olivieri, 81, had applied to a local nonprofit for heating oil under the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. "They send you a letter, they call the oil company up and send the $400 to them," he said. "On the letter they say that's my allotment for oil. They don't say that they're gonna give you any more."
It's not likely they will: Just in time for the start of winter, Congress and the White House reduced LIHEAP funding by 25 percent. The federal government doled out $4.7 billion for heating assistance in fiscal 2011; the 2012 allotment is $3.5 billion. The cut happened in December as lawmakers scrambled to fund the government before they left town. The result will be less heat for fewer people.