WASHINGTON – June 24, 2015 – The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) president and CEO Patrick Butler issued the following statement today commending the U.S. House Appropriations Committee for providing level funding for public broadcasting:
“Today is an important day in the history of public television. For the first time in five years, the House Appropriations Committee has approved legislation to provide federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $445 million in Fiscal Year 2018. Both the Republican majority and the Democratic minority of the Committee have recognized the worth of this federal investment in the work of education, public safety and civic leadership that public broadcasters perform in every American community every day. We provide cost-effective, high-quality contributions to these public service missions, and we have proven ourselves careful stewards of this public investment which is essential to our work.
“To have this vote of confidence from the House Appropriations Committee and its Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies at a time of extraordinary budgetary challenge is especially gratifying to America’s public television stations, and we are profoundly grateful to the Committee for supporting our role in everything from lifelong learning and the presidential emergency alert system to preserving local history, culture and civic engagement across America.
“In addition, we remain optimistic that Congress will ultimately provide funding for Ready To Learn, as the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee did in yesterday’s markup. Moving forward we are also hopeful for funding of public broadcasting’s critical interconnection system.
“We are especially appreciative of the leadership of Chairman Hal Rogers and Ranking Member Nita Lowey, and subcommittee Chairman Tom Cole and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, in creating a broad bipartisan consensus in favor of this funding. We are greatly encouraged by the growing support for public television on both sides of the partisan aisle, both sides of the Capitol, and at both the federal and state levels. We will do our best to continue to merit this support, and we commend our lawmakers – Republicans and Democrats alike – for producing this challenging but vital legislation.”
About APTS
The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization established in 1979. APTS represents the overwhelming majority of the 171 public television licensees nationwide. The mission of APTS is to conduct – in concert with member stations – advocacy, planning, research and communications activities to foster strong and financially sound noncommercial television. APTS also works to ensure member stations’ commitment and capacity to perform essential public service missions in education, public safety and civic leadership for the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
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