Mainers are in for a harsh winter— thanks to Republicans | Rep. Chellie Pingree

Rep. Chellie Pingree is the U.S. congresswoman for Maine’s 1st District.

Between the mountains of snow, the waves of bitter cold and the occasional Nor’easter, we
Mainers are no strangers to harsh winters.

This winter could be one of the hardest in recent memory. And not because of the weather. The statewide average price of heating oil just hit a record $6.02 a gallon. As of Sept. 28, it was still averaging $5.96 — up nearly 79% from the same week last year. At today’s price, a 250-gallon fill-up costs about $1,490 — an expense many Maine families will face more than once this winter.

Meanwhile, gas prices are hovering around $4.40 per gallon as of Sept. 25, according to
Maine Public.

As if all this wasn’t awful enough, the number of Mainers receiving assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has fallen by 13% — 13,000 people in all, including 7,000 children. Another 31,000 Mainers are projected to lose MaineCare coverage over the next year.

Add it all up and this winter is going to put an enormous strain on Maine families — especially those who can least afford it.

Advertisement

This looming crisis is the result of choices President Trump and congressional Republicans made. Choices they continue to defend.

Let’s back up to July 4, 2025, when the president signed his hallmark legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, into law.

The “Big Ugly Bill” is a more accurate name. It slashed Medicaid by $1.2 trillion and SNAP by $211 billion over the next decade, all while handing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.

Far from offsetting those devastating cuts, the Big Ugly Bill’s ludicrous tax breaks are projected to increase federal deficits by $4.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act also handed $175 billion to the Department of Homeland Security, helping turbocharge the Trump administration’s cruel immigration enforcement agenda and bringing chaos and violence to communities across the country. That includes Maine, where an ICE agent shot and killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford on July 13.

The young father was not the target of ICE’s operation that morning. He had no criminal history, and we don’t have body camera footage of the shooting. His family has still not been contacted by the federal government and is still waiting for a full accounting of what happened.

Advertisement

This bill will go down as one of the most irresponsible, destructive, and costly pieces of legislation in American history. Not just in terms of its fiscal recklessness, but its human toll as well: nearly 13 million fewer people enrolled in Medicaid by 2034 and roughly 2.4 million fewer people receiving SNAP in an average month, according to CBO estimates. Its consequences will reach every community in America, in shuttered rural hospitals, overwhelmed food banks and increased costs for state and local governments.

The Big Ugly Bill alone would have been devastating enough for Maine. Then Trump’s reckless, unauthorized war of choice in Iran has kicked every one of these crises into overdrive. In the nearly eight months since the war began — a conflict Trump insisted wouldn’t last more than a few weeks — the global economy has been thrown into turmoil.

The on-again, off-again closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints, has sent energy prices skyrocketing — and disrupted the flow of goods around the world. When the world’s energy supply gets squeezed, everyone pays more. In a state like Maine, where a colder-than-average winter can mean the difference between keeping the heat on and putting on extra layers just to stay warm, the potential consequences are catastrophic.

None of this had to happen. These crises have been created or made worse by Trump’s policies — and by congressional Republicans’ refusal to push back on the president and stand up for their constituents.

And now, with Americans staring down record energy costs, Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home early for a seven-week campaign recess. Rather than staying to work on the many challenges facing our nation, Republicans tucked tail and left.

Republicans could’ve chosen to help you. They chose to help the already-rich get even richer — and to give an army of masked, heavily armed and utterly unaccountable ICE agents virtually unlimited resources to terrorize our communities.

Advertisement

My Democratic colleagues and I have been fighting them every step of the way. We’ve voted against these devastating cuts. We’ve introduced legislation to protect healthcare and food assistance. We’ve demanded accountability for an administration that continues to put its deeply unpopular agenda ahead of the people it’s supposed to serve.

And we are demanding action on the heating crisis: end the war in Iran, protect the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, reverse changes to the Home Owner Managing Energy Savings Rebates and High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate programs and reinstate the energy efficiency tax credits Republicans eliminated. Speaker Johnson should call the House back to Washington so Congress can get to work.

We will keep fighting — at every turn, and for as long as it takes. Because Mainers deserve better. They deserve a government that makes their lives more affordable — not one that cuts their healthcare and food assistance, sends energy prices through the roof and hands massive tax breaks to the people who need them least.

Mainers have survived plenty of hard winters. But the hardships coming this winter are the result of decisions made by Republicans in Washington, who would rather leave town than fix the problems they created.

Copy the Story Link

Tagged: columns