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Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues. I want to thank the Senator from Illinois for helping to organize this today. I thank my colleague from Oregon and my dear colleagues from the Commerce Committee Senator Welch and Senator Baldwin.

We are here today to talk about an essential safety issue--it is really public safety--and somebody is trying to masquerade it as a fiscal responsibility issue.

The proposed rescission of $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting isn't just an attack on NPR and PBS; it is a reckless--reckless--endangerment of 13 million Americans who depend on these stations for lifesaving emergency information. When the floods rise in the Southwest or wildfires rage in the West or hurricanes barrel down on the Atlantic or gulf coast, public broadcasters are often the only lifeline connecting families and rural communities to the crucial emergency information. This isn't hyperbole. These are the facts.

Consider what happened in Kentucky during the historic tornado of December 2021. When that devastating storm carved one of the longest tornado tracks in our Nation's history, WKMS public radio was often the sole source of news as the community suffered widespread power and communications outages. So families huddled in the dark and relied on battery-powered radios to receive lifesaving information. Without WKMS, many would have been completely shut off.

Look at Hurricane Helene just last year. Half a million Americans lost power across the Southeast; the internet failed; cell phone towers went dark, but Blue Ridge Public Radio kept broadcasting, providing the most reliable information when alternative sources simply would not function without electricity.

Even in the aftermath of the unthinkable situations that happened this past week in Texas, Texas Public Radio stayed on the air to provide updates on severe weather alerts, recovery efforts, and to help the community mourn and rebuild together.

The numbers are a sobering story as 79 radio stations and 33 TV stations across 34 States will probably have to shut down if these cuts are enacted.

This chart shows the impacts that people are saying we have from our most vulnerable fire situations coming up. I think these are this year's numbers. That is in red. Our most vulnerable tornado--well, the Senator from Illinois knows this well. All of this in the light color, in the green, shows a very high--relatively high tornado risk. Then the last, our blue coastal areas, show a relatively high or high risk for hurricanes.

What do the black dots represent? What do the dots represent in each of these areas? Radio stations that will no longer exist if this rescission comes into power. If you cut these programs, you are going to lose the revenue from these radio stations and risk their being shut down.

Now, why would we do that?

For me, in the central part of our State, I guarantee you that I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it in Yakima, WA, where KDNA serves the surrounding community that has a high risk of wildfires. Northwest Public Broadcasting maintains 24-7 fire coverage from May through October, tracking blazes that threaten lives and property, and they have expanded coverage especially to address wildfire communication gaps for Spanish-speaking northwesterners. This is a big agriculture section of our State, and we want to ensure that everybody receives the alerts regardless of their language.

What the President's rescission ignores is that public broadcasters serve as the official resource in at least 20 States' emergency plans. The NPR manager--they manage the public radio satellite system-- receives emergency alert systems that are fed directly from FEMA. That means they are part of our emergency response. PBS operates the warning alert and response network, which transmitted over 11,000 emergency alerts last year alone. That is a 33-percent increase from the previous year. Let me repeat that: Eleven thousand emergency alerts went out. That is 11,000 times that these radio stations in these areas I am talking about warned people about dangerous and life-threatening risk.

In Oklahoma, this March, the public broadcaster issued 65 fire alerts across 13 counties in just 10 days, and 6 evacuation orders were transmitted. KOSU operates the system at a cost of $751,000 annually, with the CPB providing crucial support. This is similar to funding like local-focused media in the Alaska Rural Communications Service, Northwest Public Broadcasting, or Harvest Media in the Great Plains. It would cost local broadcasters more than double of CPB's current contribution to replace these critical services.

So this isn't smart budgeting. It is definitely penny wise and pound foolish. These will cost lives instead of saving dollars. Rural communities face the greatest threat. We know that. We just learned this even more this past week with these horrific tragedies. When a severe storm knocks out power, when tornadoes approach, when cell phones fail, when battery- powered car radios don't work, we need to make sure that there are radio stations that do.

Since 1975, Congress has recognized that public broadcasting requires stability to serve communities effectively. So this isn't a partisan issue; it is a practical issue. We need to say that we are going to save public radio. When the next disaster strikes--and trust me, it will. I live in a very disaster-prone part of the United States, with all sorts of issues, from fires to volcanoes, to tsunamis, to floods, to lots of things. We need to be able to access potentially lifesaving information.

So I urge my colleagues to reject these dangerous rescissions and make the investment here that is helping us save lives across the United States.

I yield to my colleagues.

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