At least one Republican Senator appears ready to hit pause on the idea of rescinding $1.1 billion of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that has already been appropriated by Congress.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) said during a Wednesday hearing that she understands the concerns of her fellow Republicans “about subsidizing the national radio news programming that for years has had a discernibly partisan bent.” However, she said, there are “more targeted approaches to addressing that bias at NPR than rescinding all of the CPB’s funding,” Communications Daily reports.
“The vast majority of [CPB’s] funding, more than 70%, actually flows to local television and radio stations in Maine,” Collins said. “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.”
President Trump, claiming bias in public broadcasting, has proposed that Congress take back the CPB’s advance funding for the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years. Earlier this month the House of Representatives passed its 2025 Rescissions Act. That measure removes the CPB funding.
Another Republican at the hearing, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, expressed concerns about Native American radio stations that receive up to 90% of their funding from public money. Rounds told White House budget director Russ Vought that those broadcasters “will not continue to exist if we don’t find a way to take care of their needs. 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 noted that current rescission plans cover the CPB’s “advanced appropriation” for 2026 and 2027 and not “current funding” for 2025.
The Trump administration plans to “preserve other funds in other agencies that could help with this particular need,” Vought said. Vought 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.”
Patty Murray (D-WA), the Senate Appropriations Vice Chair, was among several Democrats who argued their opposition to plans to claw back the CPB’s advance funding or reduce federal money for public broadcasting in general. Trump’s proposal, Murray said, “will rip away funding that supports over 1,500 local public TV and radio stations. Rural communities will be the hardest hit, not to mention our kids.”
Earlier this week Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued a report that found “79 public radio and 33 TV stations across 34 states and territories are considered vulnerable to federal funding cuts” proposed by Trump. “Nearly 13 million Americans live in communities under threat of losing their local public broadcast stations.”