U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was among several Republicans who spoke out Wednesday against President Trump’s plan to claw back $9.4 billion that Congress previously appropriated for public broadcasting and global health programs.
Murkowski told White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought that public broadcasting is essential to public safety in Alaska.
“I hope you feel the urgency that I'm trying to express on behalf of the people in rural Alaska, and I think in many parts of rural America, where this is their lifeline,” she said at a Senate Appropriations hearing. “This is where they get the updates on that landslide. This is where they get the updates on the wildfires that are coming their way.”
Trump is asking Congress to take away two years of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which comes to $1.1 billion.
Vought told senators that the networks air radical left content.
“Republicans have campaigned on cutting funding for NPR and PBS for decades, and with good reason,” he said. “Many members of this body have made the case eloquently, and the leadership of NPR's own actions and testimony have left no doubt as to their agenda.”
The idea of public broadcasting dates back to 1938, when the Federal Communications Commission reserved a few broadcast channels for noncommercial and educational programming. Building on that, Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967 as an independent nonprofit.
CPB sends most of its money to local stations across the country, including Alaska Public Media. The national TV network PBS gets 15% of its funding directly from the corporation and NPR gets 1%. The networks also benefit indirectly, because member stations pay for their programming.
Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee criticized the rescission package. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, did too.
In her state, CPB funding supports everything from “emergency communications in rural areas to coverage of high school basketball championships and a locally produced high school quiz show,” she said. “Nationally produced television programs, such as ‘Antiques Road Show’ and ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,’ are also enjoyed by many throughout our country.”
Most of the rescissions package is aimed at foreign assistance, especially at PEPFAR, an anti-AIDS initiative launched by then-President George W. Bush.
Vought said some of the medical funds have been spent on “far-left activism, population control and sex workers.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed some of the foreign aid is “nonsense” that shouldn’t receive another penny.
“But the administration’s attempt to root it out has been unnecessarily chaotic,” he told Vought. “Instead of creating efficiencies, you’ve created vacuums for adversaries, like China, to fill.”
Most Republicans on the committee, though, did not object to the rescissions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he'd vote for the clawbacks, even though he supported PEPFAR in past years. He said Vought had opened his eyes that some of the money was spent on "that junk."
The U.S. House has already passed Trump’s rescission request. The Senate has to pass it by mid-July or it will expire.
Editor's Note: Alaska Public Media President Ed Ulman is among the public broadcasting advocates who have campaigned to defeat the rescission of CPB funds. He had no hand in the writing or editing of this story, nor in any of our news coverage.
