Kennedy, Perry File No Propaganda Act to Block CPB Funding

would rescind “unobligated balances” of CPB’s advance funding for fiscal years 2025, 2026 and 2027. Kennedy and Perry bowed the No Propaganda Act hours after Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., filed the Defund Government Sponsored Propaganda Act (HR-1216/S-518) to end federal funding for public broadcasting and claw back CPB’s advance funding for FY25, FY26 and FY27 (see 2502110072). House Appropriations Committee Republicans attempted to end CPB's advance funding in 2023 and 2024 (see 2407100060). The House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee is eyeing a March hearing targeting claims of public broadcasting bias (see 2502030064). “It might have made sense many, many years ago for the federal government to subsidize public broadcasting,” but Congress should no longer “be picking winners and losers in the news media,” said Kennedy, a member of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee, on the Senate floor. He cited claims of NPR's pro-Democratic Party bias that began to draw congressional Republicans’ scrutiny last year (see 2405080064). “If you are a news outlet, and you want to publish this kind of stuff, that is your right as an American,” but “I'm not for taking $500 million every single year and giving it to these stations, to the exclusion of all others, to do it,” he said. Kennedy also noted that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last month ordered the Enforcement and Media bureaus to investigate PBS and NPR member stations over possible underwriting violations (see 2501300065). NPR didn’t comment.