[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 41 (Tuesday, April 4, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H1398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PUBLIC BROADCASTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 31, 2006, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, more than 87 million Americans tune into 
public television each week and 30 million listen to public radio. And 
they depend on this Congress to provide some of the economic resources 
so that in every community across the country people can listen to 
those thousand public radio and television stations for programs that 
inform and inspire.
  For help with reading, job training, for the latest digital services, 
for local news and information, for dozens of other reasons. These 
stations around the country determine their own program schedules. They 
often produce their own programming. We, in Oregon, are immensely proud 
of Oregon Public Broadcasting for its award winning programming. They 
respond to community needs and leverage local support that is so 
important.
  While the Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes its annual 
appropriations from Congress in accordance to a statutory formula for 
which almost 72 percent of the funds go directly to local public radio 
and television stations, the Federal appropriations while it only 
accounts for 15 percent of the entire costs, it leverages critical 
investments from State and local governments, from universities, 
businesses and foundations, and most important, from millions of 
viewers and listeners of public television and radio. They add their 
dollars to this core vital Federal support, writing checks to allow the 
public broadcasting to continue. However, we have faced issues of major 
reduction in this funding which would have immediate and severe impacts 
on our community and constituents.
  Last month, 126 bipartisan Members signed a letter in support for 
$430 million in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 
This is a modest amount by reckoning of the vast sums that are thrown 
around here in Washington, DC, but it has a critical impact. It is 
going to be essential that we provide the core funding for the 
Corporation For Public Broadcasting and hopefully retain the practice 
of advanced funding which costs the Treasury nothing but gives public 
broadcasting certainty over time so that they can plan on allowing for 
the changes and development that they need.
  There has been a modest request that has been suggested, $30 million 
above the fiscal 2006 funding. This is going to not even cover the 
additional electricity costs that public television must bear to 
operate both a digital and analogue transmitter. That transition to 
digital technology is also important for Congress to focus on. It is 
not cheap.
  Public broadcasting has led the way. They have raised more than $1.1 
billion from all sources for this purpose. We are asking for a little 
additional money, an increase of $10 million this year. This can have a 
critical impact, not just on the clarity of the broadcast that is 
received by people in their homes, but there is also an opportunity to 
replace and update the television interconnection system, known as the 
Next Generation Interconnection System, that the Department of Homeland 
Security has been testing as a foundation for a new digital emergency 
alert system. Not just better service for people at home, but an 
important potential addition to our homeland security.
  Last but by no means least deals with educational technology. In the 
No Child Left Behind legislation passed in 2001, Congress authorized 
two programs, Ready to Learn and Ready to Teach. Ready to Learn 
harnesses television's universal reach to improve early childhood 
learning, while Ready to Teach uses technology to develop more highly-
qualified teachers to measurably increase student standards. It is 
important to make sure that we support Ready to Learn, which received a 
small increase last year, focused on literacy and teacher professional 
development. Ready to Teach last year actually sustained a cut. It is 
requested that funding for both programs be increased in fiscal 2007 to 
$32 million for Ready to Learn and $15 million for Ready to Teach.
  Last year we had to come to the floor with a strong bipartisan vote 
where 87 Republicans joined with every single Democrat to restore 
Draconian cuts to public broadcasting. This year it is more important 
than ever for education, for the Public Broadcasting Service, and for 
national security that we not have to go through that effort.
  I urge my colleagues to look carefully at the requests that have been 
made for public broadcasting and join with us this year in assuring a 
strong funding base that will leverage hundreds of millions of dollars 
across America and provide the services Americans deserve.

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