Washington, DC (JBANC) - The Senate Appropriations committee on Thursday marked up the FY04 Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations bill (S1585), which oversees funding for Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe /Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) broadcasting to Central and East European audiences. The committee approved language in the CJS bill which would restore the funding to FY03 levels for continued VOA and RFE/RL broadcasting to the region in the coming year.

The hard work of constituents across the United States is being acknowledged in Congress for helping to keep the issue of funding for these broadcast services alive. Joint Baltic American National Committee, Inc. (JBANC) Chairman Janis Bolsteins credited and thanked Baltic Americans from Maryland through Illinois to California for their efforts. The “struggle to preserve America’s prestige and influence abroad”, is not yet over,” stated Bolsteins, “there is still much more work to be achieved on this issue..”

While JBANC welcomes the committee action, it points out that the report omits mention of Latvian VOA broadcasting. Both Slovak services were among others left out. Whether or not this was inadvertent, it is now critical to have language in the final version of the bill that would correct the oversight. Estonian and Lithuanian VOA and RFE/RL services were included in the report along with Latvian RFE/RL.

Even though the Senate appropriations report asks for restoration of radio funding at FY03 levels, there may by room for interpretation on what the levels are. The Senate appropriations report could be seen as being about $3.4 million less than for the corresponding authorization bill, which asks for restoration of $8.9 million for broadcasting services in the region. The House authorization bill passed but the Senate bill is currently held up due to unrelated issues.

The CJS Appropriations bill still needs to be approved by the full Senate and will then be negotiated in a conference committee of members from both the Senate and the House. In the House version of the CJS bill (H.R.2799) efforts to support language to restore radio funding were not successful.

Last week JBANC met with representatives of the White House to deliver a letter to President Bush’s senior advisor Karl Rove requesting a change in policy. The FY04 Budget proposal presented by the Administration earlier this year did not include funding to continue language services to the Baltics and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

On Monday, with other members of the Central and East European Coalition, JBANC met with Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to ask for his support on the issue.

JBANC represents the Estonian American National Council, Inc., the American Latvian Association, Inc. and the Lithuanian American Council, Inc.

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