Case in point is the relatively low-profile Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP. Created by Congress in 1981 as a means to help people afford the costs of heating and cooling their homes, it currently helps some 6.2 million people pay their bills. In early April, the Trump administration fired the program’s entire staff of fewer than 30 people, whose jobs were housed within Robert F. Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services. Congress allocated $4.1 billion to LIHEAP this fiscal year, about 90 percent of which had already been distributed to states by the time the administration decided to purge its staff. That leaves $378 million left to be given out, and no one left to do it. The White House’s 2026 discretionary budget proposes eliminating LIHEAP altogether.

LIHEAP’s budget isn’t a massive line item for the federal government, but it could be the difference between life and death for those who depend on it to keep their homes from turning into ovens. Roughly two million households across the Northeast rely on the program. In some of those states, more than 50 percent of LIHEAP users are over the age of 60—populations that are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. One Virginia-wide study found that zip codes with higher percentages of residents 65 and older were associated with a 23 percent higher risk of heat-related emergency room visits and hospital admissions in high temperatures.