Originally published in Current, Aug. 4, 1997
Congress delays key decisions, but indications so far are favorable
Originally published in Current, Aug. 4, 1997
By Steve Behrens
Before adjourning for August, congressional leaders last week left strong indications of support for future aid to the field: marked-up appropriations proposals that would raise CPB nearly to its past peak, plus talk of appointing a commission to figure out what happens next.
"We hope we can continue riding that wave in September," said NPR lobbyist Betsy Laird.
Appropriations Committees in both the House and the Senate last month set $300 million levels for the fiscal 2000 appropriation to CPB. In inflation-adjusted buying power, that's 5 percent below CPB's 1990 level of $229 million, but in current dollars it would still be a gain of $50 million over the level for fiscal 1998 and 1999.
"It's nice to see it getting back up where it was supposed to be a couple years ago," says David Brugger, president of America's Public Television Stations. Congress actually appropriated a slightly larger sum for fiscal 1996--$312 million--but it was partially rescinded to $275 million before CPB could spend the money.
As for the authorization, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), the key House subcommittee chairman overseeing CPB funding, indicated last week that he'll propose a commission to draw up plans for adequate funding. He suggested, as he has before, that commercial broadcasters might pitch in some money in exchange for their own deregulation.
Both appropriation and authorization bills will have to wait until after Congress comes back to work Sept. 3. The House last week delayed dealing with the big appropriation bill that contains the CPB money to avoid a time-consuming floor fight over unrelated abortion-funding issues. And Tauzin's telecom subcommittee--busy with new Internet and cellular phone bills--didn't complete the pubcasting legislation he had hoped to announce July 30.
As usual, there's no certainty that amounts approved in committees will prevail. Rep. Joel Hefley, Republican from Colorado Springs, planned to introduce an amendment to knock the House's CPB number back down to $250 million if the Labor-HHS package came to the House floor last week.
Still, congressional leaders are not only backing a year-to-year raise for CPB, but also rescuing the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program from the zero-funding recommended by the White House. For next year's budget, the House Appropriations Committee last week recommended $16.75 million for PTFP and the Senate adopted a $25 million amount in a floor vote. Even the lower number is a gain over this year's sum of $15 million.
Tagged on to the House appropriation bill for CPB was special legislation for WYIN, the public TV station serving Gary and Merrillville, Ind., southeast of Chicago.
In its report attached to the bill, the Appropriations Committee says it "expects" that CPB will not treat WYIN as an overlapping station in the Chicago market--a designation that would cause it to lose part of its Community Service Grant. General Manager Darrell Rowlett said that Reps. Peter Visclosky (D) and Stephen Buyer (R) put the statement into the committee report on behalf of the station.
Rowlett argues that WYIN is the only grantee that CPB treats as an overlap station whose overlapping neighbors are located across a state line. It also serves its Indiana viewers with locally produced programming, including an hour of news and public affairs every weeknight.
He says the stations overlap very little in their programming. Comparing 11 weeks of WYIN's schedule with those of the two Chicago stations, Rowlett counted just 26 hours of programs on WYIN that aired the same day on either WTTW or WYCC. Only four shows in 11 weeks aired the same day and same time.
National pubcasting groups are expected to oppose the WYIN exemption on principle. Without agreeing or disagreeing with WYIN's case, Brugger said that bringing political pressure into the public TV system's internal operating policies "opens up a can of worms."
Tauzin wasn't ready last week to propose the pubcasting bill that his staff had predicted, but the congressman did have three others: stating a policy against future FCC regulation of Internet services, creating new privacy protections for Internet users, and reinforcing the law against eavesdropping on cellular phone calls.
The pubcasting bill is "still in the oven," he said, but he indicated the recipe involves the same ingredients he has been discussing since taking the subcommittee chairmanship in January.
He sketched a possible deal with commercial broadcasters. Congress may be able to encourage them to contribute to a trust fund for public broadcasting if they are given "appropriate regulatory relief."
The TV industry may get interested in helping public TV, for example, if the Clinton Administration's yet-to-be-named Advisory Committee on Public-Interest Obligations of Digital Broadcasters recommends heavy new mandates for "government-preferred programming" such as extensive free airtime for political candidates, Tauzin said.
The way he sees it, mandates like that attempt to turn commercial broadcasters into public ones, while inadequate funding of pubcasters has forced them to compete for commercial revenue.
He indicated that Congress would leave the drafting of a new funding struc ture to a "commission" of some kind -- "a set of wise minds to work out the options." One of the options presented to the body would be a trust fund, he said.
Tauzin seemed to have heard pubcasters' early lobbying for assistance in making the transition to digital transmission. He mentioned helping pubcasting "to enter the digital world."
Current Briefing on federal aid to public broadcasting.
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