House Appropriations Debates FCC Funding for FY26; Subcommittee Bill Excludes CPB Money

House Appropriations members barely mentioned the Financial Services bill’s FCC allocation during the Wednesday debate, but several Democrats blasted its proposal to slash the FTC’s annual funding. The proposed $390.2 million FCC appropriation includes $12.7 million for its Office of Inspector General. That’s level with what the commission received in FY 2024 and FY 2025 (see 2403250015) but 6% less than President Donald Trump's budget request. The bill would allocate the FTC $388.6 million for FY26. That’s more than an 8% decrease from what the agency received in FY24 and FY25 but 1% above what the Trump administration sought (see 2506020056).

House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the FTC funding cut “means scam peddling, price gouging and market-manipulating corporations get a green light.” The cuts “are not just numbers on the page,” she said. “They have severe consequences for all American people.” Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., noted that the FTC reduction follows on the heels of Trump’s March firings of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2503190057), which remain in legal dispute. “It rewards that abuse of power, and it undercuts an agency that protects people from scams, price gouging and junk fees,” Bishop said. “We could fund and empower [the FTC to go] after rising costs when they're properly funded and empowered to work for the people,” added Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.

The FY26 funding bill report directs the FCC “not to modify” or otherwise alter its rules for USF “high-cost support for competitive eligible telecommunications carriers before” NTIA awards funding to states for the $42.5 billion BEAD program. House Appropriations’ report would also require the FCC “to ensure BEAD funding has been awarded before determining eligible areas and deploying the 5G Fund to ensure the FCC can leverage pressure-tested maps and BEAD funding decisions to ensure the greatest likelihood of closing the 5G mobility gap with these funds.”

House Appropriations’ report also “encourages the FCC to conduct outreach to” ISPs on the potential “adverse impact” of the commission’s 2024 digital discrimination order. The FY26 funding bill already included a set of riders that would bar the agency from using money to enforce certain policies that originated during the Biden administration and have been in Republicans’ crosshairs, including the digital discrimination order (see 2507220057). House Appropriations “believes it is imperative [that the FCC] seek public comment this fiscal year on any reform proposals that have been submitted to the Commission or otherwise previously considered that would promote the sustainability and viability of the USF and resolve inequities in the current contributions structure.” The panel also seeks a range of FCC reports and briefings on telecom policy issues, including alternatives to the commission’s lapsed affordable connectivity program “to ensure that low-income Americans stay connected.”

The lack of CPB funding in the House Appropriations LHHS funding bill barely factored into the subpanel’s debate Tuesday night, with only Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., mentioning it. The Senate Appropriations advanced its LHHS Subcommittee’s FY26 funding bill (S-2587) in July without any CPB funding (see 2507310062), despite strong misgivings from Democrats. CPB said in early August that it was beginning an “orderly wind-down of its operations” before its FY 2025 funding expires at the end of September (see 2508010061).

“I don’t understand why” CPB, NPR and PBS have become a “perennial target” of President Trump, who first sought the funding clawback in June (see 2506030065), Dean said. The defunding and CPB’s impending close “will hurt local stations that provide critical services to Americans.”

America’s Public Television Stations “are deeply disappointed that [LHHS] did not include essential funding for” CPB in its funding bill Tuesday, said CEO Kate Riley, and want House Appropriations to restore the money when the panel marks up the bill next week. The measure “misses an opportunity to extend a desperately needed lifeline to local public media stations that are devastated by" the funding rescission.

“Local stations have already begun cutting essential local programming and services and laying off local staff that support critical community activities across the country,” Riley said. “Some stations are even cutting broadcast hours and looking at other desperate measures to stave off closures which threaten many stations, especially those serving rural and remote communities.”