Wednesday, July 19, 2017, was a critically important day for public media funding, with House Committees acting on two bills affecting local stations.

House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill

Thanks to your emails, calls, and tweets, the House Appropriations Committee approved critical funding for your local stations in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill, including:

• Full funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which directly distributes seed funding to your public radio & public television stations.
• Full funding for Ready To Learn, which supports rigorously researched and proven-effective educational content for children.

However, Interconnection funding, which is the backbone of the public media system and allows stations to send you programming and emergency communications, was eliminated.

While we were disappointed that we couldn’t safeguard Interconnection, we’re thrilled that CPB and Ready To Learn funding was provided in today’s tough fiscal environment.

The House Appropriations Committee’s support of public media funding is a huge victory and the culmination of your ongoing outreach to your lawmakers.

What Happens Next

The Senate is still putting together its version of this appropriations bill for Subcommittee consideration. And with Congress preparing to leave D.C. in August, the next action on public media funding will likely be in the fall.

While we advanced another step, there are still a few more steps to go to secure full funding.

Over the next few months, we’ll be fighting to preserve funding in the final House Bill and ensure full funding is provided in the Senate draft.

With your help, we’ve made major strides. We hope you’ll stick with us until we secure vital public media funding.

House Budget Resolution

The House Budget Committee, which sets the overall spending limit for the federal government, passed a Budget Resolution.

Since the Budget Committee hasn’t released all the documents that accompany the Budget Resolution, we have not been able to confirm if public media funding is mentioned.

In the past, the House has proposed eliminating public media funding. If it does again, this would be a significant, but non-binding threat.

We’ll update you here and via email when we learn more about if the Budget Resolution mentions public media funding.