Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) mentioned he’ll assist a package deal of greater than $9 billion in cuts to overseas support and public broadcasting after making a cope with the Trump administration.
Rounds mentioned Tuesday that he labored with the Workplace of Administration and Finances (OMB) on a deal that might redirect some funding accepted below the Biden administration as a part of the Inflation Discount Act.
“We have an agreement with OMB to resource the funds from other already allocated funding through what had been [former President] Biden’s Green New Deal program, and we’ll take that money and we’ll reallocate it back into the tribes to take care of these radio stations that have been granted this money for the next two years,” Rounds informed reporters Tuesday.
Rounds had beforehand held off from backing the package deal, citing considerations about how tribal stations would fare below President Trump’s proposed public media cuts.
The shift comes as high Senate Republicans are ramping up work to lock down assist for Trump’s package deal to claw again beforehand congressionally accepted funds. Republicans can afford to lose three votes within the Senate.
The invoice, which handed the Home final month, requires $8.3 billion in cuts to the US Company for Worldwide Improvement and overseas support, and greater than $1 billion in cuts to the Company for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Congress has till July 18 to go the laws below the particular rescissions course of initiated by the White Home final month that permits the Senate to approve the funding cuts with a easy majority vote, bypassing anticipated Democratic opposition.
Whereas the CPB supplies some funding to NPR and PBS, which have come below heavy GOP scrutiny because the occasion has leveled allegations of bias in opposition to the media organizations, Republicans in each chambers have raised considerations the cuts may have a disproportionate impact on rural and tribal stations.
Requested Tuesday whether or not a parallel deal for nontribal broadcasters was additionally within the works, Rounds mentioned he’s “not aware of any of those.”
“The ones that I was concerned with were specifically these tribal grants. I think there were 14 total,” Rounds mentioned.
“Some of them might be 50 percent funded under this program,” Rounds mentioned. “Some of them are 80-85 percent funded.”
“They wouldn’t have survived without this, but they provide emergency services information for some of the most rural parts of our country and some of the poorest counties in the United States.”
Pressed on the legality of the transfer, Rounds argued the transfer to switch the funds could be authorized, “according to OMB.”“OMB has assured us that they believe that they do have the authority to make that transfer, and that the Department of the Interior has agreed to take the transfer and to place it directly in — through the Department of the Interior to these tribes,” he mentioned.“But we know it’s less than $10 million total, so it’s not a huge sum of money compared to the rest of the rescissions package. But for me, it was very important.”The Trump administration has already confronted a sequence of authorized challenges over efforts to withhold congressionally accepted funds.
