2 House Republicans Offer Dueling Bids to Defund NPR Amid Bias Claims

bills the Defund NPR Act. Tenney’s legislation would also direct CPB to claw back advance allocations for NPR for fiscal years 2024, 2025 and 2026 to “reduce the public debt.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., is also eyeing legislation to kill NPR's federal funding. The network has drawn increased ire from conservative media organizations over its disciplining of now-former editor Uri Berliner for publishing an essay criticizing the organization for appearing to stray into open advocacy against former President Donald Trump and other conservatives. Berliner resigned Wednesday after NPR suspended him without pay for five days. NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who took that job March 25, has been a focus of criticism in the wake of Berliner’s resignation and her own past support for President Joe Biden’s 2020 election over Trump. NPR “has been a liberal propaganda machine for years” and Congress shouldn’t appropriate it “another dime,” Banks said in a Fox News opinion piece. “American taxpayers should not be forced to fund NPR, which has become a partisan propaganda machine,” Tenney said. Congress allocated CPB $535 million in advance funding for FY 2026 as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending package Biden signed in March (see 2403210067). House Appropriations Committee Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to end CPB's advance funding as part of FY24 spending legislation (see 2307140069). Biden is proposing to increase CPB’s advance funding to $595 million for FY 2027 (see 2403110056), while the House Republican Study Committee wants to fully end that allocation. Past attempts to end NPR's part of CPB federal funding have failed, including a bid during the FY24 cycle by Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas (see 2311030069).