A supporter wears an apron with Trump's picture before Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S., October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul

Right-wing commentators have been applauding GOP lawmakers' defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), accusing National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS of having a liberal bias. But Democrats are countering that gutting the CPB will hurt rural areas because of the work that NPR stations do locally.

Now, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, grants for emergency alerts are a casualty of the CPB cuts.

Dispatch reporter Jennifer Shutt, in an article published on August 30, explains, "The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that has so far provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts. The change comes after Republican lawmakers voted, last month, to defund the corporation, following a request from President Donald Trump to zero out more than $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for the organization."

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Shutt notes that Congress "originally formed the Next Generation Warning System grant program in fiscal [year] 2022 and provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency about $40 million during its first year."

"FEMA then gave that money to CPB to reimburse stations for infrastructure and other improvements meant to get emergency alerts sent through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to more Americans," Shutt reports. "That appears on track to change in the months ahead. FEMA officials wrote in a notice of funding opportunity for the current fiscal year that the grants will now go directly to state and tribal governments that can then award funding to public broadcasting stations that make improvements to their emergency alert systems."

The Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter points out that Democrats, along with some Republicans, "have raised concerns that without funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, local stations wouldn't be able to raise enough funding to remain in operation, potentially leading to holes in the country's emergency alert system."

"CPB, which plans to cease operations later this year, announced this week that it would no longer be able to administer the grant funding Congress approved during fiscal 2023 and 2024," according to Shutt. "The corporation had yet to determine which applicants would receive the funding lawmakers provided for those two years."

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Read the full The Iowa Capital Dispatch article at this link.