The President signed the continuing resolution Friday, which means the government continues to get funded through April 8. It is the second short-term, stop-gap appropriations bill passed in the past several weeks as Republicans and Democrats continue to fight over larger budget cuts.
This bill H.J. Res. 48 cuts some funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The cuts are separate from the NPR-targeted cuts being proposed, and the effort to zero out CPB funding entirely, and were supported by the President. But CPB says at least one of them could be problematic.
While CPB did not ask for more funding for two of the programs cut, a third, the $20 million for the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), was described as a "core" program by Patrick Butler, president of the Public Media Association, which was formed last month to lobby against major budget cuts pushed primarily by Republicans. He said it had "[ensured that] local public television and radio stations [were] able to provide the highest quality, reliable, universal service to their communities, including underserved areas and communities devastated by disasters."
The House has passed a bill to cut funding for NPR dues and national programming, but that is unlikely to make it past the Democratically controlled Senate.
In opposing that targeted NPR bill, the White House said it was still open to "[CPB] spending reductions that are reasonable."
