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PHOENIX — Saying not everyone needs more heat, Gov. Janet Napolitano wants the Bush administration to withdraw its opposition to additional funds to help the needy pay their utility bills.

In a letter Wednesday to the Office of Management and Budget, the governor said it is a "tragic misunderstanding" to conclude that the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, is "largely a heating assistance program." She said the result of that policy statement could be "a matter of life and death" to Arizonans who suffer through triple-digit temperatures.

The federal agency is using that explanation of the program to justify the Bush administration's opposition to federal legislation that would nearly double the amount of money available. The legislation, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. comes as the $2.6 billion program has only about $120 million left to carry it through Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

The unsigned policy statement, issued Saturday, warns U.S. senators that if S 1386 reaches Bush's desk "his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."

The threat apparently worked: On a largely party-line vote that same day, the Senate found itself 10 votes short of the 60 necessary to halt debate and bring the bill to the floor. Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl voted like all but five Republicans against allowing the bill to proceed; Sen. John McCain was absent.

But Kyl said there was a good reason for that vote.

Simply spending more money on the program, without first changing the distribution formula, "will leave us with the situation we're currently in, with Arizona and other warm-weather states getting severely shortchanged," he said. Kyl already has asked U.S. Energy Secretary Michael Leavitt to release that last $120 million "to help Arizonans cope with the extraordinarily high temperatures in parts of the state."

On that point, Napolitano finds herself in agreement with Kyl.

"Arizona has the 11th-highest energy cost among all states," the governor wrote to OMB Director Jim Nussle, averaging 18.3 percent higher than the rest of the country. At the same time, Napolitano said, major utilities are requesting or have been granted rate increases.

"Yet despite this established need, Arizona receives the least amount of LIHEAP funding per eligible household," she said. As a result, the governor said, 94 percent of residents who meet eligibility standards do not get aid.

In its policy statement to the Senate, the OMB said increasing the available funds between now and Sept. 30 — the end of the federal fiscal year — "is unnecessary because LIHEAP is largely a heating assistance program and many states end their heating programs by the spring." That makes the additional $2.5 billion unnecessary, the memo says.