CPB Funding Spared in House Budget Bill, but Uncertainty Remains

In the early morning hours of May 22, the House passed its reconciliation bill before heading to recess. This bill does NOT target or remove funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The reconciliation process will now move to the Senate.

To defund CPB through the budget reconciliation process, both the House and Senate must pass a bill that includes defunding CPB. As defunding was not in the House bill, the reconciliation process is no longer considered an active threat to public media. 

What happens after reconciliation?

After reconciliation, the annual appropriations process will begin. Congress can eliminate funding for CPB as part of the appropriations process. President Trump’s proposed FY26 budget, which informs Congress of his priorities, proposes eliminating funding for CPB. If Congress eliminates funding for COB in the FY26 appropriations bill it would eliminate funding for CPB in FY28, because of the forward-funding model that has been established for CPB.

What about the Executive Order and the Rescission Request?

These two actions are separate from the budget reconciliation and appropriations processes.

• Executive Order:  Read our earlier post here about the Executive Order issued by President Trump on May 1, 2025. President Trump’s Executive Order had three components:
  1. Mandating that no CPB funds flow directly or indirectly to PBS or NPR. This element is being challenged in court.
  2. Directing all government agencies to stop any funding for any purpose that goes to NPR or PBS with immediate effect. This has resulted in the suspension of the “Ready to Learn” program, a program of the federal DOE, which supports early learning programming and research. Approximately 20 PBS education staffers have been furloughed, in addition to an unknown number of affected staff at 30 RTL designated stations.
  3. Directing HHS to conduct an investigation into the hiring practices at public media organizations. We do not have any information on the scope, timing, or other aspects of this investigation.
• Rescission: The President can send a rescission request to Congress at any time, in order to rescind, or claw back, funding already appropriated by Congress for CPB. While the reports from April suggested a rescission request was imminent in May, no rescission letter has been delivered to Congress yet. Delivery intentions remain unclear.