Today, House Republicans will call an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee to take on an issue of near-catastrophic importance: the $90 million in funding that annually goes toward supporting National Public Radio. The meeting will center upon Republican congressman Doug Lamborn’s bill, rushed to the floor without traditional hearings due to its importance, that would bar the government from funding NPR and its affiliates. (The House already tried to de-fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which also supports PBS, but the Senate blocked this.) The White House and Senate have already agreed to eliminate $50 million in planned increased funding for the CPB, but Lamborn wants to focus directly on NPR in the light of conservative activist James O’Keefe’s doctored “sting” video and permanently ban funding for the radio network. It’s not likely his efforts will meet with success in the Senate and White House, who in this matter seem to have a different definition of the term emergency.
