Senate Appropriations Backs FY25 FCC and FTC Increases, Keeps Advance CPB Money
The Senate Appropriations Committee cleared a pair of FY 2025 funding bills Thursday that maintain advance CPB money for FY 2027 and increase annual allocations to the FCC and FTC in excess of their FY 2024 budget. The House Appropriations Committee approved its versions of the FY25 bills covering those agencies, but Republican chamber leaders have delayed floor consideration of both measures amid shifting legislative priorities (see 2407230038).
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Senate Appropriations voted 27-0 to advance the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY25 bill, which allocates $448 million to the FCC. That’s level with President Joe Biden's March request and is almost 15% more than what the commission received for FY24 and 7% better than what House Appropriations proposes in its funding bill (HR-8773). As expected, Senate Appropriations’ measure doesn’t include stopgap money to revive the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program (see 2407310048).
Senate Appropriations said in a bill summary that its FCC funding “includes resources" to support the agency's "critical work connecting people across the country to high-speed internet and ensuring all Americans have equitable access to essential technology.” The panel hadn’t published the full bill text and an associated report as of late Thursday afternoon. Financial Services Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Senate Appropriations leaders didn’t mention the FCC or FTC during an abbreviated debate on the funding bill.
Senate Appropriations proposes $450 million for the FTC in FY25, nearly 16% less than Biden sought. However, that funding still represents a 5% increase from FY24 (see 2403250015) and more than 15% above what House Appropriations included in HR-8773. Senate Appropriations said FTC funding would help the agency continue its “vital role in protecting Americans from consumer fraud and unfair and anticompetitive practices.”
Senate Appropriations voted 25-3 to advance its FY25 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee bill, which includes $535 million in FY27 funding for CPB. That’s level with what CPB got in FY24 but 10% less than the increase Biden proposed. House Appropriations’ FY25 LHHS bill (HR-9029) doesn’t include advance CPB funding but allows that entity to keep the advance FY25 money it received during the FY 2023 cycle.
The $535 million will help CPB “support more than 1,500 locally-owned TV and radio stations nationwide,” Senate Appropriations said in a bill summary. “This includes a critical investment of $60 million for digital interconnection and $535 million as a two-year advance appropriation, of which roughly 70% is provided directly to local public TV and radio stations.”
America’s Public Television Stations is "grateful for the bipartisan support of [Senate Appropriations] for this continued investment in the work of public television,” CEO Patrick Butler said. “We are hopeful that the bipartisan, bicameral congressional support for public television will result in the final FY 2025 appropriations bills including the Senate funding levels.”
Senate Appropriations said its FY25 LHHS bill includes a $20 million increase in Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration funding to implement the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. LHHS Chair Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., highlighted the additional 988 funding during Senate Appropriations’ meeting. The Lifeline during its first two years “has answered 10 million calls, chats and text messages,” which is “both encouraging, as well as a distressing sign of the number of individuals, especially youth, seeking crisis care,” she said: The $20 million increase will “ensure someone is on the other end of that call.”