House CR Maintaining CPB Funding Seen a Victory, Not End to Battle
A House budget compromise is a victory, not an end to the battle for public broadcasting, facing legislators’ threats to yank all federal funds for it, industry executives said in interviews. The House maintained funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in its final continuing resolution. The final draft of the CR was released Tuesday. While the CPB will receive the remainder of its $445 million for fiscal 2011, $80 million was cut from additional programs. During the last fiscal year, CPB was appropriated $420 million.
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Some advocates called it a great victory. It’s really significant, said PBS President Paula Kerger. “For many of us in public broadcasting, it was tremendously heartening to feel that we're in a different place now than we were a few weeks ago.” But “we need to stay vigilant and continue to make our case to show that we're relevant and important,” she said. “The cuts that could have happened would have been catastrophic."
"This bill makes painful cuts,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said in a written statement. “But it could have been a lot worse, especially when you compare it to the alternative from the tea party extremists in the House, which would have done away with funding for public broadcasting and caused real damage to the economy.” With the debate almost over, “Congress can refocus on the full budget for the next fiscal year and the long term,” he said. The measure is a huge victory, said an aide to Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore. “We need to use this moment as an opportunity to secure the future and role of public broadcasting in our communities going forward.” The funding bill “reaffirms the importance of the American people’s investment in public media and the service that local stations around the country provide every day,” he said. CPB will continue educating Congress “about public radio and television stations, their service and the important role they play in their communities,” a CPB spokeswoman said.
The advocates expect the CR to clear the House and Senate, but they said other hurdles remain. “We've got to start immediately with the 2012 appropriations process,” said Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations. “It’s our opportunity to go and tell these members of Congress the complete story of public broadcasting.” Also, “we want to make sure we get as many senators and congressmen to come to our stations and see how little it actually costs the federal government to make these things happen at the local level,” he said. “This gives us a lot of leverage going into 2012,” Blumenauer’s aide said. “It’s going to be important not to sit on the sidelines.”
The CR zeroes out $25 million for public radio interconnection, $25 million for station fiscal stabilization and drops funding for digital transition support from $36 million to $6 million. CPB received money for the interconnection and stabilization programs in fiscal 2010, “but did not request any for FY11,” CPB said. The funding resolution’s elimination of $20 million for the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program is a setback, and will be a part of campaigning efforts going forward, public media advocates said. The funds for the program, run by NTIA, have been dwindling since 2004. The program has “been misconstrued as a digital transition account,” but “it pays for the equipment for public TV and radio stations,” said Blumenauer’s aide. “It’s important to restore it.” The PTFP “is, in essence, gone and that’s an issue of concern,” Kerger said. “So many of our stations have technical issues as they deal with their digital equipment” and “some of that equipment is shorter than it was under analog.”