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Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak not just in opposition to the proposed rescission of public broadcasting funds but in strong support of something far more important: the survival of local public radio and television stations across the country.

These local stations are lifelines. And in moments of crisis, they become critical tools for public safety. When hurricanes knock out power, when wildfires force evacuations, when floods or winter storms threaten entire towns, it is local public stations that deliver the emergency information people need in realtime.

Public broadcasters also serve a critical role in distributing alerts to other commercial stations serving as an entry point for the information. It helps to connect the entire emergency alert system.

Public media stations are embedded in the communities, trusted by their neighbors and committed to getting lifesaving information out. Pulling the rug out from under these stations--especially in rural areas where they may be the only source of local news and alerts--is a threat to public safety.

That is not hypothetical. That is reality. These stations don't just serve in times of disaster. They serve every day by delivering local news that no one else is covering. In an era of media consolidation and nationalization, public radio and television step in. They are the ones at the townhall meeting, the school board meeting, the high school debate tournaments.

They are covering water quality reports, zoning changes, and the voices of everyday Americans. These stories aren't trending on social media, but they matter deeply to the people who live in these communities.

And then there is the service these stations provide to our youngest viewers and listeners. For millions of families, especially in low- income and rural areas, local public television is the only source of high-quality educational programming for kids, and it is free. There are no ads, just storytelling that teaches kindness and curiosity and literacy and respect. These stations are community institutions run by local staff and listened to and watched by local residents.

In fact, let's be honest, from 7 in the morning to 5 every afternoon, it is the children's television network, and that is why the polling says that 80 percent of Black and White and Latino and Asian families support that children's television. It is the children's television network from 7 in the morning until 5 o'clock every single day that has been serving America for generations.

When we talk about eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, we talk about cuts that are going to imperil the survival of many public stations in rural and underserved areas, which often rely on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for more than half of their budgets.

We should be finding ways to strengthen these stations, not eliminate the modest Federal support that keeps their doors open and their transmitters running. And I urge my colleagues to protect local public broadcasting, protect the signal that reaches the farmhouse, the mountain top, the Tribal land, the city block. Protect the station that covers your community when no one else does.

I thank each of you for your consideration on that issue.

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