Senate Votes to Cut Funding for NPR, PBS
Sends amended rescissions package back to the House
WASHINGTON, July 17, 2025 – A rescissions package that would cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, has passed the Senate.
Just after 2 A.M. Thursday, the Senate voted 51-48 to pass the $9 billion rescissions package. All Democrats voted against the measure, except for Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who was hospitalized Wednesday. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Democrats in opposing the measure.
The legislation now heads to the House, where GOP lawmakers will race to get it passed and sent to the President’s desk. Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Congress has until July 18 to get the bill passed. Should they fail to do so, the rescissions would not go into effect, and the funds would be spent as previously allocated.
Though multiple amendments to the legislation were proposed, mostly from Democrats, only one amendment, S.Amdt.2853, was approved. That amendment, proposed by Senate majority leader John Thune, R-S.D., and sponsored by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo, eliminated a $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the only Republican to vote against the amendment.
Democrats, such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., argued that the cuts would reduce access to educational content, and compromise public safety.
“Eliminating this funding would be devastating for local public radio and television stations,” Baldwin said. “It would reduce or eliminate access to educational programming, local news, and life-saving alerts during emergencies and natural disasters.”
In contrast, many Republicans, such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued that PBS and NPR were nothing more than taxpayer funded partisan outlets.
“Public broadcasting has long been overtaken by partisan activists, plain and simple,” Cruz said. “...If you want to watch left-wing propaganda, turn on MSNBC, but the taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize it.”
Open questions remain as to whether the House will be able to pass the amended rescissions package. The original rescissions package passed the House 214-212, and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have warned that they may oppose any water-downed version of the legislation.
The impending cuts are not the only thing the CPB has to worry about. On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed suit against three CPB board members removed by the President on April 28. That suit claimed that the three members: Laura Ross, Thomas Rothman, and Diane Kaplan, had been “usurping and purporting to exercise unlawfully the office of board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”
Though a preliminary injunction seeking to halt the removal of the members was denied by a District Court in June, the three have continued to serve as members of the Board. The Tuesday suit sought to oust those members from the Board through a quo warranto action, and declare official actions taken by the members since April 28 to be void.
Member discussion