LIHEAP money can be used for weatherization, up to 15% of a state total, or 25% with a federal waiver

LIHEAP money can be used for weatherization, up to a legal limit

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, called LIHEAP, pays part of a low income household heating and cooling bill. Federal law also lets a state move some of that same money into weatherization instead, the work of sealing and insulating a home so it costs less to heat and cool. LIHEAP money can be used for weatherization, but only up to a share the law itself sets at 15%. The statute that created the option, 42 U.S. Code Section 8624, subsection k, calls the eligible work, "low cost residential weatherization or other energy related home repair for low income households," the exact term Congress wrote into the law. For fiscal year 2026, Congress funded LIHEAP itself at 4.045 billion dollars. The standard 15% share of that total caps out at 606.75 million dollars nationwide, a ceiling this site calculated from that total, not a reported amount any state has actually moved.

A waiver can raise the share to 25%

A state can raise its own limit to 25% if the Secretary of Health and Human Services grants a waiver. The same subsection lists conditions checked after March 31 of the fiscal year. The number of households getting non weatherization LIHEAP benefits cannot fall. The total dollar amount of those benefits cannot fall below the prior year level. The weatherization spending has to produce measurable energy savings, or the state has to show good cause for missing the household count condition. A separate government analysis, the Congressional Research Service, corroborates the same numbers independently, describing "a limit of 15 percent of their allotment for weatherization unless a grantee has a waiver from HHS for up to 25 percent." At the full 25% waiver share, the ceiling on the same 4.045 billion dollar total rises to 1011.25 million dollars, again a figure this site calculated from the statute limit, not a total any state has reported spending.

A 2025 disbursement shows the mechanism moving real money

A separate, earlier disbursement shows what a version of this money looks like once it is actually sent, even though it predates the fiscal year 2026 total above and should not be added to it. On July 8, 2025, the Department of Energy sent 325 million dollars in Weatherization Assistance Program funds, 30 million dollars in Weatherization Readiness Fund money, and 64 million dollars in State Energy Program funds to 56 grantees, covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 5 territories. The department says the Weatherization Assistance Program has served more than 7 million households and delivers an average annual energy savings of 372 dollars. Eric Mahroum, director of the department Office of State and Community Energy Programs, framed the round this way.

Thanks to President Trump's leadership, we are able to focus on reducing energy costs for Americans that can least afford high energy prices through the efforts of Weatherization.

Eric Mahroum, director of the Department of Energy Office of State and Community Energy Programs. Source 5.

No state has published its own transfer total

No source found for this article states how much money any single state has actually moved from LIHEAP into weatherization, only the rule that allows it and the ceiling that follows from doing the arithmetic on the fiscal year 2026 total. That gap matters to a policy reader comparing 2 state programs, since a state weatherization program can look bigger or smaller than the Department of Energy own weatherization funding alone would suggest, for reasons this transfer option explains, without a public state by state accounting to check the reason against.