WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie joined most other House Republicans to strip more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday as part of a wider claw-back of previously approved federal funding.
The House voted 214 to 212 — largely along party lines — to revoke $9.4 billion of previously approved congressional spending.
Most of the funding had been earmarked for foreign aid, including programs supporting democracy abroad, promoting low-carbon technologies, combating the spread of AIDS and bankrolling peacekeeping missions, among other goals.
President Donald Trump requested Congress pull the funding, known as a rescission, as part of spending cuts pursued by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The administration said the cuts follow Trump's campaign promise to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, but critics allege Trump is eliminating programs that had previously enjoyed bipartisan support.
The cuts also removed two years of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit Congress created decades ago to fund public media. The organization has long been a target for conservatives, who argue the media landscape has matured enough that federal funding is no longer justified.
"The decision by Congress to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a serious setback for local communities like ours."Hasanna Birdsong, incoming CEO of Lehigh Valley Public Media
The Trump administration took the criticisms further, accusing NPR and PBS of partisan news coverage. Both organizations have denied the claims.
A LehighValleyNews.com request to interview the freshman Republican representing Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District was declined. After the publication of this story, Mackenzie released a statement championing the bill late Thursday night.
"Congress rightly took action to end billions of dollars in wasteful foreign aid for programs like voter ID in Haiti, "Net Zero Cities" in Mexico and sexual reproductive health in Venezuela," he said.
Mackenzie also said he voted to cut $1 billion of public media funding for hundreds of organizations across the country because of the "turmoil at public media institutions like Lehigh Public Media." He said LVPM spent excessively and went through layoffs in the past year after earning $82 million by auctioning off its television broadcast spectrum in 2017. LVPM had $75.5 million in its endowment as of February.
"While covering this subject, LVPM should seek to address their own internal turmoil before expecting more money from taxpayers," he said.
GOP's Fitzpatrick opposes measure
Mackenzie, who previously represented parts of Lehigh County for 12 years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, said in past interviews that he intends to support Trump's agenda while picking moments to defend organizations in the Lehigh Valley. Groups like Second Harvest, the largest food bank in the region, have found its funding in DOGE's crosshairs.
“I don’t need them to make a change for everybody in the entire country," he told LehighValleyNews.com in an April interview. "But there will be instances where I will go, 'I just need you to make the change for the people in my community.'”
All U.S. House Democrats and four Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., voted against the measure. The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, which has until July 18 to pass it.
Should the Senate agree to strip the funding, it would have serious implications for the future of public media stations across the country.
Lehigh Valley Public Media receives about $1 million, or 20% of its revenue, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The public media company operates the television station PBS39, the radio station 91.3 FM WLVR and LehighValleyNews.com, a hyperlocal news site, out of the Univest Public Media Center on the SteelStacks campus. The organization also supplements educational efforts at Lehigh Valley schools, libraries and with other partners.
Incoming CEO Hasanna Birdsong said the organization will need to be more reliant on its donors as it pursues its mission of informing, educating, engaging and entertaining the greater Lehigh Valley.
"The decision by Congress to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a serious setback for local communities like ours. While these cuts will present challenges, they do not shake our commitment to serve as a trusted source of news, educational programming, and community storytelling that reflects and connects us," she said.
While LVPM has undergone layoffs in the past year, it is better positioned to withstand the potential loss of federal funding than other public media stations. The $75.5 million endowment covers a significant portion of LVPM's operation annually.
