An attempt to restore funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) by the Senate Appropriations Committee failed on Thursday after the committee decided to leave it out of a fiscal 2026 spending bill.

Congress approved defunding CPB earlier this month after pressure from the Trump administration. The action drew sharp criticism from Democrats and even from some Republicans who fear the loss of local rural public TV stations.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) rebuked the committee’s action.

“One thing this bill does not do, unfortunately, is fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As everyone knows, Republicans rescinded bipartisan funding we provided for CPB in the first ever partisan rescissions package,” Murray said in her opening statement. “It is a shameful reality, and now communities across the country will suffer the consequences as over 1,500 stations lose critical funding.”

Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, said the association was “deeply disappointed” that “essential funding” was not restored.

“With this vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee missed an opportunity to extend a desperately needed lifeline to local public media stations that are already cutting essential services and staff and, in some cases, planning for their closure as a result of the rescissions of public media funding earlier this month,” she said. “The impact of the elimination of this necessary public media funding for local stations, as we have warned all along, is real and imminent and it has already begun to dramatically impact the vital services that local stations provide to communities across our country.

“This bill was an opportunity to acknowledge the dire situation that local stations are in and reverse their devastating fate. Instead, today the Senate Appropriations Committee turned a blind eye to local public media stations and the communities that rely on them for critical services."

Riley thanked Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee Vice Chair Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) for their bipartisan support to restore CPB funding.

“We look forward to working with them and all of their colleagues that also support their local stations to fight for the restoration of this funding in FY 2026,” she said.

WASHINGTON–The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted today to provide level funding of $445 million in FY2020 for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $27.7 million in FY2018 for the Ready To Learn program, a competitive grant program at the Department of Education that supports the creation of public television's on-air, online and on-the-ground children’s educational media content. In addition the committee approved funding of $20 million for an annual interconnection and infrastructure program.

America's Public Television Stations (APTS) president and CEO Patrick Butler expressed the association’s gratitude for the vote, citing the educational and public safety benefits of public broadcasting.

“These federal funds are essential to local public television stations’ public service missions and to ensuring that everyone, everywhere in America, every day has access to these essential services for free,” Butler said. “Public television helps millions of preschool children get ready to learn in school and succeed in life, and supports almost two million educators who teach 40 million K-12 students, including tens of thousands of home schoolers, in America every day.

“Public television delivers essential public safety services, which the events of the past week and a half have proved are more critical than ever. During the flooding in Houston, Houston Public Media’s datacasting infrastructure helped Houston and Harris County first responders monitor flooding conditions by sending live video directly to the dashboards of emergency vehicles from all across the vast Houston metropolitan area. The partnership between Houston Public Media and the public safety community has been literally a life-saver in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. 

Butler also thanked leadership for working across party lines. “We are most grateful for the bipartisan leadership of Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS), Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO), Committee Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA). The broad support for this funding among both Republican and Democratic members of the committee, where the bill passed on a vote of 29-2 today, mirrors the support the American people have consistently given to our work in communities throughout the country. We are hopeful that the Congress will continue to demonstrate its bipartisan support for public media as the appropriations process moves forward.”