8. Media Agencies (USAGM, CPB) · Minor
Upgrade and refund USAGM shortwave radio transmission capability
Printed page 242 8. Media Agencies (USAGM, CPB)
“Non-web-based technologies that are proven and durable, such as shortwave radio transmission stations, have been grossly deemphasized in budgeting in favor of newer web-based technologies. This move is dangerously short-sighted and puts the U.S. at a perilous strategic disadvantage in the event of a major conflict, particularly with Russia or China.”
What has happened
- Not started
Shortwave transmission was protected at existing levels, not upgraded or refunded. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 requires that not less than $30,000,000 of USAGM operations go to the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and that those funds support "medium- and short-wave broadcasting at not less than the fiscal year 2024 level" reaching all provinces in Cuba, and subjects significant modifications to USAGM broadcast hours, "including changes to transmission platforms (shortwave, medium wave, satellite, Internet, and television), for all USAGM language services" to congressional notification. Both are floors and notification duties for one entity; the $9,700,000 broadcasting capital improvements account is unchanged in character and is not directed at shortwave. Nothing upgrades or refunds USAGM's shortwave transmission stations.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Boundary flagged: a reviewer who reads a statutory floor on Cuba shortwave plus a transmission-platform notification requirement as a piece of the ask delivered would level this partial. Recorded not started because the Quote asks for upgrading and refunding capability, and a floor is neither.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- USAGM shortwave radio transmission stations
- ID
- 625