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By Bart Jansen Sunday, February 25, 2007

While the National Governors Association debates health care and energy at a conference starting today, Mainers face urgent concerns about funding running out for heating-oil assistance and children's health insurance.

At the Washington conference, Gov. John Baldacci will highlight an innovative economic-development program to expand the boat-building industry in Maine. But he'll also try to impress his peers and President Bush with the significance of funding federal programs for heat and health.

"I'd like to be able to let the president know how important it is," said Baldacci, in a phone interview Thursday. He was scheduled to arrive in Washington Saturday night and leave Monday night.

The governors meet at the J.W. Marriott hotel -- strategically located between the White House and the Capitol. Bush is hosting the group at a state dinner tonight at the White House and at a meeting Monday.

The state chief executives are focusing their winter conference on children's health care, early-childhood education, energy and trade.

Baldacci will give a presentation on the $15 million grant the state received from the U.S. Labor Department to cluster training, research and marketing for boat-building in an effort to create a projected 2,000 jobs over the next several years.

"We have a lot of nationally and internationally recognized boatyards in Maine," he said. "We have a backload of orders and we need people to work and be apprentices in those programs."

Baldacci also will meet with New England governors and his counterparts from Canadian provinces to discuss a federal initiative to require passports for travel between the countries.

The border-security program remains contentious in Maine, where crossings to and from Canada are routine. Air passengers to Canada were required to begin carrying passports in January, but Congress postponed by 18 months a similar requirement for motorists and pedestrians that was to take effect next January.

BLEAK HEAT FORECAST

But federal spending remains an immediate concern. A variety of advocacy groups held a news conference Thursday in Augusta to decry losses against inflation next year in Bush's budget proposal, including:

$4.3 million for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

$4 million for Community Development Block Grants.

$3.4 million for drinking-water and wastewater projects.

$2.5 million for Justice Department grants.

$1 million for Head Start.

LIHEAP is an urgent problem during frigid weather. Heating-oil costs compete among personal budget priorities with food, shelter and medication.

But while Congress appropriated $3.2 billion last winter for the program, this season the program got about $2.2 billion. The program helped 50,000 households in Maine last year.

Jo-Ann Choate, who administers the program at the Maine State Housing Authority, participated in a Washington news conference Feb. 12 urging Congress to boost the funding by $1 billion immediately.

The forecast is bleaker next year. Bush proposed $1.78 billion for the program in the year starting Oct. 1.

"Too many households -- including our vulnerable elderly -- already struggle to pay their utility bills, especially as energy prices have soared in recent years," said Fenwick Fowler, president of the Maine Community Action Association. "This budget will leave more households out in the cold."

CUTS IN FUNDS FOR KIDS

Children's health insurance poses a dilemma because the state faces a shortfall in Medicaid funding that threatens to cut off coverage for thousands of children this summer. A congressional remedy at the end of last year for other states failed to help Maine.

The program under Maine

Care covers 14,800 children and pregnant women in families earning up to twice the federal poverty level. But Maine faces an estimated $6.5 million shortfall in July that jeopardizes health care for 3,250 children.

Baldacci said the federal funding for children's health care has a ripple effect. "It's important. It certainly will help the children and it will also help the families and the businesses."

Advocacy groups and the National Governors Association will be talking about how to extend the program rather than let it expire at the end of September.

The crux of the problem is that $5 billion a year in federal funding already can't keep up with participants nationwide, which would take an estimated $815 million. And many groups want to expand the program.

"Americans are looking to the president and Congress to help the nation move forward -- not backward -- in covering uninsured families," said Ana Hicks, a policy analyst at Maine Equal Justice Partners.

Washington, D.C., Correspondent Bart Jansen can be contacted at 202-488-1119 or at: