By Mary Alice Miller
In a rarely used move Congress passed the Rescission Act of 2025 at the behest of Trump. On May 1 Trump signed an executive order to end taxpayer subsidization of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
The executive order stated that “NPR and PBS have fueled partisanship and left-wing propaganda with taxpayer dollars, which is highly inappropriate and an improper use of taxpayers’ money… To illustrate its partisan capture, NPR management asked its editors to avoid the term “biological sex” when discussing transgender issues.”
Refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story, whether COVID-19 originated in a lab, a Valentine’s Day story about “queer animals”, and negative coverage of congressional Republicans were among reasons cited to deem PBS and NPR as biased media.
The rescission clawed back $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal years 2026-2027. That funding was allocated for local radio and television stations in all 50 states and territories. CPB distributes federal money to more than 1,500 noncommercial TV and radio stations across the country. Small and rural stations that receive a substantial portion of their annual budget for CPB may be devastated or knocked off the air entirely.
“This vote is an unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions, and an act of Congress that disregards the public will. Two-thirds of Americans support federal funding for public media, and believe that it is a good value for taxpayer dollars,” said Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR in a statement.
“Americans listen to their local NPR stations daily, watch their favorite PBS shows loyally, raise their children on educational television, and listen to music stations that showcase the best of our home-grown music traditions.”
Maher added, “Public funding has enabled the flourishing of a uniquely American system of unparalleled cultural, informational, and educational programming, and ensured access to vital emergency alerting and reporting in times of crisis.”
LaFontaine E. Oliver, President and CEO of New York Public Radio called the rescission “a devastating blow to the American public broadcasting system.” The rescission will cut about $3 million from this year’s budget, and another $3 million next year.
New York Public Radio includes WNYC, Gothamist, WQXR, NJPR, The Green Space, and WNYC Studios.
“In plain speech, this is the worst possible outcome of a months-long series of attacks. This vote effectively ends federal funding for public media, which has enjoyed bipartisan support since 1967. But I will assure you, it will not be the end of public media, or New York Public Radio,” said Oliver in a statement.
“I also want to make it clear that we will do everything in our power to help secure the future of the entire public media system—not just our own.
We are currently working with major philanthropic donors on a sustainable project to aid at-risk stations as they regroup and rebuild. We’ll do whatever it takes to stand strong for our community, now and for years to come.
Our city and our democracy can’t afford for us not to.”
North Country Public Radio is a NPR member station in Canton, New York, near the Canadian border, serving an audience that’s across northern New York and western Vermont. North Country Public Radio receives between 12% and 15% of its budget from CPB.
“We have been broadcasting across the North Country for 57 years because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s the way to tell people about the communities in which they live. And it’s a way for us to share the story of the North Country with the rest of the world,” said Mitch Teich, General Manager of North Country Public Radio.
NCPR serves towns and villages so small that if they had to rely on broadcasters who were in it to make a profit to serve them, they would have no service at all.
“But I would say, by and large, the vast majority – and by which I mean the vast, vast majority – of the stories that we do at NCPR and stations across the system do really are there to promote the free flow of information that people need to make informed decisions,” said Teich. “We give those communities really a sense of community. We have been one of the very few organizations that serves people around the region and gives them something to gather around.”
The cuts to Corporation for Public Broadcasting are part of a total cancellation of $9 billion in authorized federal funding. The other portion included foreign assistance programs. Preserved was $400 million for Pepfar, an HIV prevention and treatment program created in 2003 under president George W. Bush.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse to approve a budgets and then appropriate money. But under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the president may request the rescission of previously authorized funds, and Congress has 45 days to approve it, otherwise the money must be spent.
The Impoundment Control Act was passed in response to President Richard Nixon’s attempt to withhold congressionally appropriated funds for things he did not like. The act removed a president’s unilateral power to impound funding.
Prior to Trump’s current rescission request, few presidents were successful in implementing the Impoundment Control Act on a smaller scale. Gerald Ford was unsuccessful in rescinding funding for Head Start. Ronald Reagan was successful in rescinding funding for the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program.
George H.W. Bush rescinded funds for military construction and the research and development of military weapons. And Bill Clinton rescinded funding for certain energy programs.
