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 As everyone knows, Republicans rescinded bipartisan funding we provided for CPB in the first ever partisan rescissions package,” Murray said in her opening statement.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.
