GOP lawmakers scramble to save rural radio stations after voting to defund them: report

Republicans voted to eliminate federal funding for public radio as part of President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" of tax cuts last year — and now some of them want to step in and save the rural and tribal radio stations endangered by this decision.

According to a new report by NOTUS, "Some Republican lawmakers say they’re requesting government funding to save rural and Native American public radio stations nearly a year after the GOP-led Congress voted to claw back public broadcasting funds. Most tribal radio stations will gradually close across the country if Congress doesn’t grant them more funding, according to a survey shared with NOTUS of tribal stations affected by last year’s gutting of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB."

With the CPB now defunct, public radio stations that serve large cities can generally get by on corporate sponsorships and contributions from listeners — but for rural stations that serve far fewer people and often lower-income communities, that luxury isn't available.

One station that could be hit hard, the report said, is in Kotzebue, Alaska, and is essential to life in one of America's most remote locations.

"Desiree Hagen, KOTZ’s news director — who says she’s the only reporter above the Arctic Circle in the United States — told NOTUS the tribal station is 'super crucial,' giving information to locals that could mean life or death, like search-and-rescue alerts, warnings on where ice is thin and critical weather updates — as well as community information, like which high school student may have made the winning shot at a local basketball game," said the report. If there is no federal funding, she said, KOTZ would be “just like an automated transmission with nobody working here.”

The Trump administration agreed to disburse $10 million to these stations last year as a condition for some rural-representing Republicans, like Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), to vote for the package — but that only lasted a year.

"Rounds, who sits on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the Interior and the Committee on Indian Affairs, says he’s pushing to keep tribal-radio-station money flowing," said the report, with Rounds telling NOTUS, “I continue to work with my colleagues on both committees to secure continued funding for tribal radio stations in FY 27. These radio stations are critical for communications in some of the most rural parts of South Dakota, and we must make certain they have the funding needed to continue operating.”