A menacing winter storm is slowly bearing down on low-income residents. It is huge, life-threatening and easy to predict. What isn’t certain is whether Congress can set aside partisan posturing long enough to help head off the damage.

A bill to pump $2.5 billion more into the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has been waylaid by the debate over gasoline prices and offshore oil drilling. This is aggravating, because LIHEAP has traditionally garnered bipartisan support, enjoying its best funding days during the Reagan administration, when it served 2.5 million people more than it did in 2003.

But this is an election year, so Congress is caught up in a game of tapping the nation’s anxiety over gas prices for political gain. Early this month, a procedural vote on the LIHEAP bill failed to get enough votes, because some Republicans are demanding that a controversial proposal to lift the ban on offshore drilling be dealt with first.

Even leaders who traditionally have supported LIHEAP are taking it hostage. From the comfortable confines of the Senate floor, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said: “It’s going to be a job to explain it (to constituents). There is no doubt about that. But I am willing to undertake that risk.”

Of course, he’s speaking of political risk, not the danger that the Senate chambers will have its power cut off in the dead of winter, or that he will have to choose between paying a utility bill or eating or buying medications.

The $2.5 billion in additional funding would about double what LIHEAP usually gets. But because funding has never been pegged to inflationary factors, agencies have had to cut the number of people served or reduce the amount of assistance to stretch dollars further. In recent years, the number of people helped through Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs, which manages the federal aid, has dropped by 11 percent.

Without increased aid, that trend will continue because energy costs are expected to continue their painful climb. Avista is asking regulators for double-digit increases for electricity and natural gas. Heating oil has topped $4 a gallon.

Households are already struggling, even without severe weather. A spring survey by the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association showed that 15.6 million households were more than a month overdue on their power bills. That’s an increase of more than 1 million over the previous spring.

There are no short-term government solutions to pain at the pump, but Congress can make an immediate difference by adopting the LIHEAP bill so that millions of people can weather the storm.