House Appropriations OKs CPB Funding Increase

The House Appropriations Committee advanced increased CPB funding Thursday along party lines. The committee was considering legislation early Thursday evening that would boost NTIA, Patent and Trademark Office and other Commerce Department agencies' appropriations. The committee advanced its FY 2022 Department of Homeland Security funding bill earlier this week, which included $2.13 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (see 2107130056).

It voted 33-25 to advance its FY 2022 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies bill, which includes $565 million for CPB in FY 2024 (see 2107120068). That’s almost 19% above what Congress appropriated in FY 2021 and mirrors what public broadcasters seek (see 2102220070). Debate didn’t mention CPB funding, instead focusing on other matters.

The LHHS bill report expands on public broadcasting diversity and inclusion language in the FY 2021 bill report. It seeks to have Congress encourage CPB “to continue to support the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and the National Multicultural Alliance (NMCA) and encourages CPB to expand its support through other established and emerging intermediaries that fund and support diverse filmmakers and production of diverse content.” House Appropriations encourages “CPB to continue fulfilling its Congressional mandate to enrich the public media landscape with diverse content on broadcast and digital platforms by funding more content creators and producers from underrepresented backgrounds.”

America’s Public Television Stations praised House Appropriations for increasing the Department of Education’s Ready to Learn program funding in FY 2022 to almost $31.8 million, up 7% from FY 2021. “This funding, as well as” the increase in CPB funding and $20 million for the public broadcasting interconnection system, mean the bill “would substantially improve our ability to educate more children, protect more lives and property, and enable more well-informed citizens,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler.

House Appropriations was still debating its FY 2022 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies bill. It would increase NTIA funding almost 97% to $89.5 billion. PTO would get almost $4 billion, up 8%. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would get $1.37 billion, up 32% and more than 8% less than what President Joe Biden sought. The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security would get $143.4 million, up more than 7%. DOJ's Antitrust Division would get $201 million, up 9%.

House Appropriations CJS ranking member Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., backed funding for NTIA and other agencies that he said “are critical to our economic and national security,” including for “quantum computing, artificial intelligence, 5G research and advanced manufacturing.” He praised subcommittee Chairman Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., for “rising above partisan politics” in putting the CJS bill together.

The CJS bill report tells NTIA to continue to “coordinate with” the FCC, the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service and other federal agencies to find ways to “continue sustainable broadband deployment and adoption, and to ensure that policies tied to one Federal program do not undermine the objectives and functionality of another.” House Appropriations urged NTIA to include “the myriad new forms of telecommunications” in its forthcoming report on the role of telecom in hate crimes. The committee said it’s concerned that communications technologies helped propagate “hateful messages that “have led to offline violence, including a notable uptick in these events over the last 12 months.”

The report encourages NTIA to coordinate with the FCC and other stakeholders “to preserve spectrum access for scientific purposes as commercial use of radio spectrum increases.” The House Science Committee plans a Tuesday hearing on earth and space observation spectrum. EchoStar Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Jennifer Manner and National Center for Atmospheric Research Associate Director Bill Mahoney are among those set to testify. The partially online panel will begin at 10 a.m. in 2318 Rayburn.

House Appropriations “recognizes the danger consolidation and monopoly power pose to our economy and democracy” and cited the “international and technology elements” of DOJ Antitrust’s work. The committee said it backs Biden’s funding increase for the division “particularly for information technology to protect and manage sensitive business information.” The panel directs the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to work with the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and others on whether trade agreement talks should include language on matters related to Communications Decency Act Section 230.