Collins Skeptical About Rescinding CPB's Advance Funding; Rounds Seeks Compromise

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee advanced its FY26 Homeland Security Subcommittee funding bill Tuesday night with $40 million for the Next Generation Warning System. That funding “will help ensure public broadcasters are able to continue to meet their public safety missions and provide the highest level of resilient and reliable public safety and homeland security services to communities throughout the country,” America’s Public Television Stations CEO Kate Riley said.

Collins said she understands fellow Republicans’ concerns “about subsidizing the national radio news programming that for years has had a discernibly partisan bent,” an issue GOP leaders provide as a reason to end federal CPB funding (see 2503260063). “There are, however, more targeted approaches to addressing that bias at NPR than rescinding all of” CPB’s funding, Collins said. “The vast majority of [CPB’s] funding, more than 70%, actually flows to local television and radio stations in Maine. This funding supports everything from emergency communications in rural areas to coverage of high school basketball championships and [a] locally produced high school quiz show. Nationally produced television programs … are also enjoyed by many throughout our country.”

Rounds asked Vought to “work with us [to protect] Native American radio stations [that get up to 90% of] their funding through NPR.” They “will not continue to exist if we don't find a way to take care of their needs,” Rounds said. “It's not a large amount of money, but would you be willing to work with us to try to find a way [to protect] these places [that are] not political in nature? These are the folks that put out the emergency notifications. They talk about community events and so forth, but they're in very, very rural areas where there simply isn't any economy to support buying advertising on these stations.”

Vought emphasized to Rounds that the CPB rescission covers its “advanced appropriation” for FY26 and FY27 rather than “current funding” for FY 2025 that stations would have more trouble addressing. The administration also plans to “preserve other funds in other agencies that could help with this particular need,” Vought said. He said CPB “has funded a politically biased public media system that has promoted radical and divisive ideologies at the American taxpayers' expense. Republicans have campaigned on cutting funding for NPR and PBS for decades.”

'Political as Hell'

There “is no longer any excuse for tax dollars to subsidize these radical, far-left networks,” Vought said. “If you would like to donate to them on your own, you are more than welcome to do so as a taxpayer, but taxpayers should no longer be forced to foot the bill.” Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., made similar arguments during the hearing. “Public broadcasting in America today is political as hell,” Kennedy said. He noted that the federal government doesn’t fund CNN, Fox News or Politico, so “why are we giving money to public broadcasting?”

Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray of Washington and several other Democrats emphasized their continued opposition to rescinding CPB’s advance funding or otherwise reducing federal money for public broadcasting. Trump’s proposal “will rip away funding that supports over 1,500 local public TV and radio stations,” Murray said. “Rural communities will be the hardest hit, not to mention our kids.” Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee, said there “are 120 rural public media stations that receive at least 25% of their revenue from” CPB, two-thirds of which are in states represented by Appropriations members.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., released a report Tuesday that found “79 public radio and 33 TV stations across 34 states and territories are considered vulnerable to federal funding cuts” that Trump proposed. “Nearly 13 million Americans live in communities under threat of losing their local public broadcast stations,” the report said.

“What’s worse, these stations serve large swaths of the Western, Midwestern, and Southeastern [U.S.] at risk of wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other public safety emergencies,” Cantwell’s report said. “This double threat casts uncertainty on the ability of these stations to disseminate emergency alerts and information to residents when they need it most.” More than “70 percent of federal funding goes directly to local public broadcasters for content, interconnection, and support services,” the report added. “It would cost local public broadcasters more than double CPB’s current contribution to replace these critical services through alternative public or private means.”