White House Seeks FY26 Funding Hike for FCC, Cuts to NTIA, USDA Broadband Grants
The Trump administration proposed an increase in the FCC’s annual funding for FY 2026 but simultaneously sought in its budget request, released Friday night, to cut appropriations for NTIA and Agriculture Department broadband programs, including ReConnect. It also confirmed plans to rescind much of CPB’s advance funding for FY26 and FY27 (see 2505280050). Meanwhile, PBS and a Minnesota public TV station sued the administration Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stop President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking CPB from distributing funding for PBS and NPR (see 2505020044).
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The Trump administration proposed $416.1 million for the FCC in FY26, including $13.5 million for its Office of Inspector General. That’s more than a 6% increase from what the commission received in FY 2024 (see 2403250015). Congress extended all federal agencies’ FY24 funding levels into FY25 via a March continuing resolution (see 2503170058). The FCC is also requesting $132.7 million for its spectrum auctions program for FY26, the Trump administration said. In its budget justification, the agency said it’s proposing to reduce staff salaries by more than $17.6 million via “continued reduction in its workforce through planned and early retirements, participation by employees in the deferred resignation program that will leave at the end of FY 2025, and other attrition.”
The FCC said it needs almost its entire funding increase for the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act, reporting that it exhausted an initial $98 million allocation to implement the law’s broadband deployment data collection and mapping mandate in April. The agency said it needs an additional $23.3 million for FY26 for that purpose. The White House also specified that it wasn’t seeking additional funding for the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program, noting that the initiative’s initial $14.2 billion allocation “was exhausted by June 2024, and the Commission wound down the ACP’s operations.”
The White House proposed that NTIA receive $46 million for FY26, a 19% decrease from FY24 and FY25 (see 2403040083). The Trump administration “proposes to continue implementation of” NTIA’s $42.5 billion BEAD program and will “continue administering previously awarded” middle-mile grants from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but it said it want “to cancel [$550 million allocated for] the fifth year of funding” for IIJA’s Digital Equity Act program. The White House also proposed canceling $40 million in "unobligated balances” for USDA’s ReConnect program from prior years.
Lobbyists told us they expect questions about the Commerce Department’s BEAD plans and Democrats’ misgivings about canceling digital equity funding during separate House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearings this week. A trio of top Senate Democratic leaders pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick last week to immediately release BEAD funding held up amid his plans to revamp the initiative (see 2505300058). The Senate Appropriations panel will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday in 192 Dirksen. The House committee's hearing will begin at 11 a.m. Thursday in 2359 Rayburn.
CPB Clawback
The Trump administration said it wants to pare back all but $30 million of CPB’s $535 million in advance FY26 funding and rescind the full $535 million for FY27. The administration planned to transmit its budget rescission proposal to Congress, including the CPB clawbacks, as soon as Tuesday. The White House said it intends for the remaining $30 million to allow the administration to “conduct an orderly closeout of Federal funding” for CPB.
America’s Public Television Stations “are deeply disappointed that President Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal recommends eliminating federal funding for the locally controlled public television stations that the American people rely on and support funding for, including 65% of people who voted for the President,” said CEO Kate Riley. “Eliminating federal funding for public media would leave many Americans, especially those in rural communities and states, without the critical services local public television stations provide.” Public broadcasters “now look to Congress … to continue the federal government’s investment in local public television stations,” Riley said.
PBS and its Lakeland, Minnesota, affiliate argued in their lawsuit against the Trump administration (docket 1:25-cv-01722) that “regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.” NPR filed a similar lawsuit last week (see 2505270047).
PBS asked the court to vacate the executive order and issue injunctions preventing federal agencies from ending PBS funding. In a statement, it said that “after careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations.” A White House spokesperson countered that CPB is “creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers' dime. Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS.”