By:  Foster’s Daily Democrat staff

There are parts of Maine that could “become uninhabitable” this winter.

The words were those of U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe and they came last week at a meeting of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Snowe is the ranking Republican member of the panel.

It wasn't rhetoric. It was a realistic evaluation of what some parts of northern New England may be facing in the winter of 2008-2009.

“When people can't afford the cost of home heating oil, they simply freeze,” Snowe said.

She wasn't being dramatic. She was simply giving us a cold dose of reality.

The threat of home heating oil selling for almost $5 a gallon is very real. As the price of heating fuels rise, some people will be forced to lower their thermostats to unhealthy levels. Some will even be forced to leave their homes.

The elderly and the poor will be hit the hardest.

Sens. Snowe and John Kerry of Massachusetts are co-sponsors of a bill to mandate that home heating oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve should be released if home heating should reach $4 a gallon. It has already passed that plateau and is continuing to rise.

The Northeast — New England and the central Atlantic states — will be hit hardest again this year. Some predictions have the cost of heating an average home for the winter reaching $3,000 or $4,000. It is predicted the national average this year will be $2,593 — a jump of more than 32 percent over last year.

Many of the people hit hardest will be unable to commit to those costs.

“Consumers and small businesses are being stretched to the limit and beyond,” Snowe said last week, “but nowhere is the ensuing calamity looming larger than in New England, where just getting through this winter is fast becoming our No. 1 priority.”

While Democrats and Republicans squabble over how to best cope with the future, the future for tens of thousands of people in northern New England is only several months away. And it doesn't look good.

While debate rages over the comparative merits of exotic energy sources, offshore drilling, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and nuclear energy, there are people in northern Maine and elsewhere who are struggling to keep out the cold from homes that are a hundred year olds or older.

There is no relief in sight. OPEC has no plans to increase its level of production, saying prices aren't likely to fall because of the increased demand by China and India. There are also the influences having nothing to do with supply and demand — the weak American dollar, and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East.

The future is indeed bleak in terms of the cost of energy and our commitment to do anything about it.

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