WASHINGTON – June 23, 2015 – The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) president and CEO Patrick Butler issued the following statement today commending the U.S. Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS-Education) Subcommittee for providing level funding for public broadcasting:
“We are very grateful to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS-Education) for recommending level advance funding of $445 million in Fiscal Year 2018 for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and level funding of $25.7 million in FY 2016 for Ready To Learn. Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) have provided extraordinary leadership in establishing important national funding priorities in the context of severe budgetary constraints, and we are delighted that the public service missions of public broadcasting – education, public safety and civic leadership – have been included among those priorities.
“We remain hopeful that as the budgetary situation improves, funding will also be provided for a much-needed upgrade in public television’s interconnection system to ensure that we can reliably play our role in the presidential emergency alert system and in providing high-quality programming and educational services to everyone, everywhere, every day, for free, including the most rural and remote areas of the country.
“And we are greatly encouraged by the growing bipartisan support in Congress for public broadcasting, as demonstrated in today’s subcommittee vote and last week’s vote in the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee. We look forward to working with Members of Congress as the appropriations process moves forward from this very promising beginning.”
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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