The U.S. House of Representatives was poised on Thursday night to pass a rescission bill that would eliminate $1.1 billion in federal funding to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
The Senate by a 51-48 vote on Wednesday passed a version of the bill, which also included about $8 billion in foreign assistance, according to the New York Times. Only two Republican senators opposed the bill: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, also of Alaska, voted to pass the legislation.
A statement sent Thursday from Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office states, “Senator Sullivan has been consistently warning executives from public media entities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and NPR that their biased programming and reporting, funded in part by the American taxpayer, would eventually jeopardize federal support for both national and local radio stations.”
According to the statement, Sen. Sullivan has been working to secure alternative funding sources for rural radio stations and there is around $10 million available for tribal and Native stations in the country.
At a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting on June 26, Sen. Murkowski drew a distinction between reporting by NPR and the work done at local stations in Alaska.
“Right now, we’ve got wildfires that are raging in the interior part of the state, and so at Fort Youkan and McGrath, it is just our public radio stations that are providing the updates to get people into safe areas,” she said.
She said 50% of the budget of the local public radio station in Wrangell comes from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
“There is no way to recalibrate. There is no safety valve for them,” she said. “This is their lifeline. This is where they get the updates on that landslide.”
In a statement from Sen. Murkowski on Thursday, she explained how her attempts to revise the bill to protect funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting came a few hours after a tsunami warning was issued for parts of Alaska.
“We saw the value of public broadcasting in my state as Alaskans anxiously awaited updates following a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that triggered a tsunami warning. Fortunately, there was no damage reported from the earthquake, and the tsunami warning was quickly canceled.”
In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Murkowski addressed funding coming from tribal grants.
She said there are about a dozen stations in Alaska that will be able to access the tribal grants, but the amount will not cover everything in the state.
Alaska has an extensive network of nonprofit radio, TV and news stations that depend on funding provided through the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
Justin Shoman, the president and general manager of KTOO in Juneau, wrote in an email that they are projecting $1.2 million, or 34% of KTOO’s operating revenue, for fiscal year 2026 to come from federal grants.
“The passage of this bill will have a profound effect on KTOO’s budget,” he wrote.
“This destructive rescission of CPB funding — the substantial majority of which goes to local stations per statutory formula — will result in sweeping cuts to local services at KTOO including music programs, news, and Gavel Alaska.”
Shoman wrote that they are asking people to contact Rep. Nick Begich, also a Republican of Alaska, and ask him to vote no on the bill.
Rep. Begich’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
