Dakota Talk Radio in the tiny town of Lake Andes, S.D., is one of dozens of rural radio stations across the United States that could see more than half of its budget vanish.
The station in Unalakleet, Alaska, a remote village in the western Arctic, could lose more than 90 percent of its funding.
And the sole station broadcasting to the Aaniiih and Nakoda Native nations in Harlem, Mont., stands to have its entire budget obliterated.
President Trump’s plan to claw back $9 billion in spending already approved by Congress, which Republicans pushed through the House this week and is pending in the Senate, would slash $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The organization funds more than 1,500 public television and radio stations across the country, including NPR and PBS stations.
Many of those stations are in red districts and states, and the cuts have prompted substantial pushback from Republicans, imperiling the bill and highlighting a broader fight between an administration bent on slashing federal funding and the lawmakers confronting the impact of those cuts.
G.O.P. opposition to the public broadcasting cuts helped to nearly sink the bill in the House on Thursday, when Speaker Mike Johnson had to wrangle two Republicans on the floor to change their “no” votes. Now, as the Senate prepares to take it up, Republicans in that chamber are raising the same concerns.
“I’m a supporter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who said she was going to try to make sure the funding continued to flow. “It’s a lifeline for many of my small, rural communities.”
Last year, more than 120 stations in rural communities relied on money from Congress for more than 25 percent of their funding, according to Corporation for Public Broadcasting figures obtained by The New York Times. Among those are 75 stations in states represented by two Republicans in the Senate. The sums on the line for elimination are substantial. While allocations have not yet been finalized for the current year or next, in 2024, for instance, Florida received roughly $25 million for public broadcasting, while Texas received more than $17 million and Alaska received about $12 million.
“We’re taking a look, primarily because of Native Americans that live in some of the most poorest counties in the United States rely on having that one lone radio station within their region that keeps them all informed as to weather emergencies and so forth,” said Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota.
Both NPR and PBS play a role in the nation’s emergency alert system, receiving and sending alerts to communities across the country. Paula Kerger, the president and chief executive of PBS, said on Thursday that the $1.1 billion in cuts would be devastating for “smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.”
Jack Jones, the acting manager at KGVA 88.1 in Montana, broadcasting to the Aaniiih and Nakoda Native nations, said the broadcast played a vital role on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. He said the public broadcasting funding was essential to his community.
“We are in a rural area, so a lot of areas don’t have cellphone service,” Mr. Jones said. “A lot of people do rely on the radio to get much of their information.” He said the station puts out emergency alerts for floods and fires, information on child support programs and live broadcasts of the monthly tribal council meeting.
The bill is also facing trouble in the Senate over its foreign aid cuts. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the Appropriations Committee chairwoman, has said she would not vote for the $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, for PEPFAR. George W. Bush started the global health program, which is credited with saving over 25 million lives worldwide.
Many House Republicans who supported the cuts argue that stations like NPR and PBS are biased and need to be reined in.
Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said on Wednesday that the law that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967 had no enforcement mechanisms, so clawing back money was the only way lawmakers could conduct oversight.
Some House Republicans said before the vote that they still supported public broadcasting. “All of public broadcasting isn’t bad,” said Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington. He said that he would rather Congress “be more strategic and use a scalpel approach.”
But in the end, Mr. Newhouse voted for the bill.
Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, was one of the two Republicans who changed their votes on the floor after initially voting “no” because he said he opposed both the PEPFAR and public broadcasting cuts.
Mr. Bacon said he had switched after being assured by House Republican leaders that PBS would continue to receive some money from Congress. But it is not clear whether that will come to pass, given that Mr. Trump, who would have to sign any spending bill, has made it clear that he regards public broadcasting as unworthy of federal resources.
“The leadership said that they’d do funding for PBS this coming budget cycle,” Mr. Bacon said in a statement. “I decided to take the win.”
Four Republicans did break with their party to oppose the measure, including Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, a co-chairman of the Public Broadcasting Caucus.
“I agree we must make meaningful cuts to shrink our federal deficit; however, I would be doing a disservice to the thousands of rural constituents in my district if I did not fight to keep their access to the rest of the world and news on the air,” said Mr. Amodei, who was joined by Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Michael R. Turner of Ohio in voting with Democrats against the bill.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
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