Bill to claw back public media, foreign aid funds clears key Senate hurdle with Vance breaking tie

Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle on the path to clawing back billions of dollars in funding previously authorized by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting. 

Vice President Vance had to break the 50-50 tie vote after three Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — voted against a motion to discharge the rescissions package out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, allowing the full upper chamber to advance to consideration of the package.

The bill, which passed the House last month, calls for $8.3 billion in cuts to the United States Agency for International Development and foreign aid, and more than $1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Congress has until July 18 to pass the legislation under the special rescissions process initiated by the White House last month that allows the Senate to approve the funding cuts with a simple majority vote, bypassing expected Democratic opposition.

Top Republicans are ramping up work to lock down support for Trump’s package to claw back previously congressionally approved funds. The party can afford to lose three votes in the Senate.

Murkowski and Collins both expressed concerns about the cuts to public broadcasting and the way the rescissions package had been presented to Congress.

“We do rescissions in our annual budget, bills, in our own appropriations bills, in fact, bills that we are working on right now as appropriators,” Murkowski said from the floor ahead of the vote.

Murkowski also expressed concern that the administration hasn’t been able to provide “very transparent explanation about the programs and the priorities that are going to be cut as a result of the measure.”

She additionally expressed concerns about public media cuts, saying lawmakers can work to address potential bias in coverage, but that there isn’t a need to “gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”

“But more important than all of that, more important is our role here. I don't want us to go from one reconciliation bill to a rescissions package to another rescissions package to a reconciliation package to a continuing resolution. We're lawmakers. We should be legislating,” she said.

The vote comes after the Trump administration worked with Republicans on potential changes to the package after some, including Collins and Murkowski, expressed concerns about the scope of cuts.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told reporters on Tuesday that the administration would be “fine with” an amendment to the package that shields the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from proposed cuts in the package.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who had previously held off from backing the package due to concerns about how tribal stations would fare with proposed public media cuts, also said he’d support the plan after a deal with the administration. 

Rounds said Tuesday that he worked with OMB on a deal that would redirect some funding approved under the Biden administration as part of the Inflation Reduction 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 told reporters Tuesday.

While the CPB provides some funding to NPR and PBS, which have come under heavy GOP scrutiny as the party has leveled allegations of bias against the media organizations, Republicans in both chambers have raised concerns the cuts could have a disproportionate effect on rural and tribal stations.

In a statement later on Tuesday, Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said while she was pleased the administration “abandoned its original request to impose a $400 million cut to PEPFAR,” the “excessive cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would harm local programming and the accessibility to popular programs like ‘Antiques Road Show’ and ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.’”

“I recognize the need to reduce excessive spending and I have supported rescissions in our appropriations bills many times, including the 70 rescissions that were included in the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under,” she said. “But to carry out our Constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.”

Shortly after the discharge vote, Vance again broke a tie to allow the Senate to begin debating the bill. That will be followed by a series of amendment votes known as a vote-a-rama, and then final passage.