Help! Robert W. Cantwell said he believes homeowners need somebody — and not just anybody — to help them pay for home heating costs this winter.

The Republican nominee for the 118th Assembly District announced his package of rebates, credits and excise taxes Wednesday that he said would most help middle-class families and senior citizens on fixed incomes. Democrat Addie J. Russell and independent Donald J. Lucas then offered different routes Wednesday to achieving a similar purpose.

Mr. Cantwell's package was the Home Energy Legislative Plan, or HELP.

"Too many families and seniors have little choice but to cut back on food, medicine and other life essentials when their home energy costs rise," the Clayton resident said in a press release. "It is not surprising that cases of undernourished children increase by about one-third during winter months. That situation is just not acceptable to me."

Mr. Cantwell's HELP initiatives mirror a five-bill package made in May by the Assembly's Republican minority. The proposed bills are:

■ A5353A, which would create a $128 million "energy rebate" program for senior citizens who lease and whose annual income is less than $66,050. The legislation would rebate $200 to senior citizens to pay for heat taxes and eliminate energy taxes on distribution services for residential customers.

The bill also exempts state sales taxes on the purchase of Energy Star-labeled appliances and energy-efficient building materials. The Assembly bill would limit that exemption to the first week of each sales-tax quarter. Mr. Cantwell's proposal detailed no such limitation; it also proposed eliminating county sales tax on such purchases.

■ A11325A, which gives an income tax credit, based on a sliding scale, to individual taxpayers whose heating costs exceed 5 percent of their adjusted gross income in New York.

■ A6603, which would offer a tax credit, up to $2,500, to offset energy-efficient improvements in a residence.

■ A6270, which provides a $500 tax credit for removing an old petroleum tank and installing a new one.

■ A5465, which would eliminate state sales tax on alternative fuels — such as wood pellets, corn and ethanol — used for heating homes.

Mr. Cantwell said HELP can be paid for by "cutting wasteful government pork and cleaning up the $4.5 billion in Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse." That's how the Republican nominee suggested paying for his gas relief plan, which he announced July 1. The plan included eliminating sales tax on gasoline and reducing Thruway tolls by 10 percent.

Mrs. Russell, Theresa, said the focus should be on expanding the state's low-income Home Energy Assistance Program to help more families. She supports ideas like an Assembly bill, A11590, that would tax major oil companies in an attempt to recapture revenue that the state lost when it capped its gasoline tax but the price of fuel didn't decline. The money, an estimated $740 million in 2008-09, would be funneled into programs such as HEAP, as well as energy conservation and home weatherization initiatives.

"The cost (of heating) has gone up so significantly and the amount of HEAP assistance has not increased at the same level," she said. "This is a way to have an immediate impact on our working families who desperately need relief."

Mr. Lucas, Massena, said the long-term solution is to develop cheaper or more efficient alternative energies.

"We need to find a way of taking care of ourselves within our own borders," he said. "We have so much energy going to waste. We just have to find a way to harness it."

The independent suggested creating work programs for forestry apprentices who could assist municipalities with harvesting downed trees or old growth. The materials could be passed to homeowners or to companies committed to improving wood pellet technology.

Both Mr. Lucas and Mrs. Russell were opposed to cutting sales tax to persuade residents to buy energy-efficient products, as Mr. Cantwell suggested.

"We can't tell people that we're going to eliminate the tax on everything, because we're in a period where the state budget is going down the tubes," Mr. Lucas said.

Mrs. Russell added: "Giving a fractional rebate to someone for an expansive improvement is not going to assist the majority of people."

The Democratic candidate instead suggested homeowners take preventive steps for winter such as installing programmable thermostats, closing off unused rooms and covering windows with plastic.

Bills lobbied for on both sides haven't passed yet. The Democratic-led Assembly passed its "windfall recapture tax" reform, but there is no Senate companion.

Meanwhile, all five Assembly bills trumpeted by the Republican minority — and now Mr. Cantwell — are lodged in the Ways & Means Committee, which has 26 Democrats and nine Republicans, including Dierdre K. Scozzafava, R-Gouverneur, and William A. Barclay, R-Pulaski.

Ms. Scozzafava is a co-sponsor of four of the five bills and a main sponsor of the legislation that would give a credit to taxpayers whose heating costs exceed 5 percent of their income. Only one bill, the tax credit for energy-efficient home improvements, has companion legislation in the Senate.