STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It would be reasonable to expect the new press secretary to face some questions this week about energy prices. The war with Iran has raised prices for gas and also home heating oil. Here's Maine Public's Ari Snider.
(SOUNDBITE OF FAIRGOERS CHEERING)
ARI SNIDER, BYLINE: It's a hot, sunny afternoon at the Farmington Fair in western Maine, the kind of bright September day that makes the long northern winter feel like a safely distant threat. But Krista Hinkley is already worried.
KRISTA HINKLEY: Oil prices are absolutely outrageous. And we're concerned that we're not going to even make it through the winter.
SNIDER: Hinkley says she and her family are cutting back where they can, chasing discounts and even eating less food. She works as a hearing aid provider and says many of her clients are in a similar position.
HINKLEY: And that's also their biggest concern is, how am I going to heat my home this winter?
SNIDER: Nationally, most households heat with natural gas or electricity. But in the northeast, many homes rely on heating oil, a fuel similar to diesel that's delivered by truck to power boilers and furnaces. That's due to higher electricity prices and limited natural gas infrastructure in the region, says Mark Wolfe with the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. And it means consumers here are feeling an extra crunch from the loss of refining capacity, the result of the wars in Iran and Ukraine.
MARK WOLFE: So as a result, we're seeing very tight supplies for diesel and heating oil.
SNIDER: In Maine, heating fuel prices hit a record high in September at more than $6 a gallon on average, an 81% jump from last year. That works out to an average household winter heating bill of nearly $3,000, according to a report from Wolfe's organization. And he says the picture in nearby states is similarly dire.
WOLFE: In New York and Massachusetts, prices were about $6.15 a gallon. That's 70% more than it was last year at this time.
SNIDER: Wolfe says it's hitting households already stretched by the rising cost of gas and other essentials.
WOLFE: So this is putting significant pressure on lower-income families.
JASON PARENT: We're seeing about the highest demand that we have seen for assistance and for services, and especially this early in the season.
SNIDER: Jason Parent is the CEO of Avec Community Action, which administers the federally funded low-income home energy assistance program in northern and eastern Maine. The early season demand is hard to meet, he says, because federal funding typically isn't available until November.
PARENT: We've had some households that have been without fuel now for over a month and are just at the critical point where they're like, it's starting to become unbearable.
SNIDER: Ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats are laying the affordability issue at the feet of Republicans, much as Republicans harnessed voter anger over rising prices during the last energy spike, triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Joe Biden was in the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORSES RACING)
SNIDER: But as the national parties jockey for position in the political horse race, at the fair in western Maine, Stewart Wyman has just been burned by the results of an actual horse race.
STEWART WYMAN: I don't think I won (laughter). I had the 5 horse, which did terrible.
SNIDER: And Wyman says he's not feeling much better about his heating oil prospects. He lives alone, so any increase in costs hits his budget hard.
WYMAN: It's kind of scary going into the winter knowing right now what the prices are going to be. And I'm not sure they're going to drop a whole heck of a lot in the short term.
SNIDER: Wyman says he's been waiting as long as possible to fill his tank. But with nighttime temperatures dipping into the 30s, he's not sure how much longer he can hold out.
For NPR News, I'm Ari Snider in Farmington, Maine.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOE'S "TWO MOONS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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