Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that appropriators did not include funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in a fiscal 2026 spending bill after Republicans successfully yanked back previously approved dollars for public media at President Trump’s request.
“One thing this bill does not do, unfortunately, is fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As everyone knows, Republicans rescinded bipartisan funding we provided for CPB in the first ever partisan rescissions package,” Murray said.
“It is a shameful reality, and now communities across the country will suffer the consequences as over 1,500 stations lose critical funding.”
Murray made the remarks as the Senate Appropriations Committee began consideration of the annual bill funding the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education — which has traditionally included funding for the corporation that was established nearly six decades ago.
Earlier this month, Republicans greenlighted a bill clawing back already allocated foreign aid and public broadcasting funds, including more than $1 billion in cuts to the CPB, which provides some funding to NPR and PBS.
Many Republicans say the cuts are long overdue, singling out NPR and PBS for what they perceive as political bias. But Republicans in both chambers have expressed concerns about how the cuts would impact the smaller stations they say their constituents depend on.
Some Republicans have also been hopeful of Congress approving some funding for local media ahead of a looming Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government for fiscal 2026.
Opponents of the cuts have already sounded alarm about the fiscal “cliff” that some stations will face as a result of the latest legislation come October.
“It is a cliff,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told The Hill earlier this month.
“They’re already speaking about it, frightened to death, particularly in rural communities that they’re not going to have access to important information or alerts about weather situations, information that they need to know, education for their kids, because they’re not in communities where there are multiple sources of information.”
