AM radio in every car. Defeated in the House.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. What this is Curtis Leguette, and he is the president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, and he’s very, very upset. This week was the week that it was the AM radio package that was supposed to go through and something went wrong. Curtis tell us the scenario of what happened in Washington.

0:27 Speaker 2 Well, John, thank you for having me on the show, and thank you for the opportunity for the discussion. You know, there’s two different elements here. The first is our bill, which is which has support from more than two hundred and seventy members of the House, more than sixty three members of the Senate. Those are the co sponsors, firmly bipartisan,

0:49 and I can tell you that in the final days here, we were able to negotiate some language into the bill to get sign off from all four corners of the Commerce committees in Congress and to be fully ready to pass.

1:07 We had the support of Leader Schumer, of Speaker Johnson, of Leader McConnell to get this in a final package here, and we ran into a stumbling block at the last moment with Leader Jeffries over an unrelated issue. So he is a supporter of AM radio. I think that we can ultimately get where we need to get here, but

1:31 we ran into an obstacle on an unrelated, unrelated broadcast issue that we need to have some more discussion with his team on. But that’s the truth of what happened here, right. We were extremely well positioned until the rug was pulled out from underneath us. No one more frustrated with that than I am. But that’s the pieces that relates to

1:51 our bill. Now.

1:52 Speaker 2 The second piece is that the continuing resolution that we were trying to get a attached to the package that ultimately came together there is falling apart. Anyhow, I think your listeners are going to be well aware that this week President elect Trump vice President elect Vance came out with serious concerns about that package that was agreed to

2:21 by the leaders of the Congress this week. So they’re back to the drawing board here and they’re going to have to put something else together. And we’re going to continue to press our case that AM radio should be included in whatever does come together, whether that is before the holidays here or into the new year.

2:39 Speaker 1 We understand and the new Congress takes hold, when is it January.

2:44 Speaker 2 Third, Yes, exactly January third. But the challenge and why they’ve got to do something now is there’s a deadline to extend funding for the federal government, which expires tomorrow night, so meeting for excuse me, Friday night. So there’s just a challenge here that Congress needs to legislate something now.

3:07 It could be something very short term to kick it to January third and have the new Congress take up this conversation around government funding. You know, the current plan had been to extend the current funding levels to March fourteenth as a part of the deal that was agreed upon tentatively this week. So all of this is up

3:24 in the air right now, and we’re going to continue to make the case for AM radio, whether it’s around the holidays this year or in the new Congress.

3:33 Speaker 1 Understood, and I guess President Trump had gotten very very upset along with JD. Van said there was spending. How much money was involved, over one hundred million more than they should have one hundred billion.

3:49 Speaker 2 So there’s I’m not sure that CBO has actually scored the package. I’ve seen some of the dollar figures that are out there, but no doubt that this is more than just a continuation of government spending for a lot of valid reasons from a dollar’s perspective. You know, this package was also slated to include dollars for disaster relief,

4:13 especially pinned to you know, the aftermath and the recovery of the you know, the devastation in the southeast earlier this year, as well as the key Bridge in Baltimore. But there’s a lot within the package that was tentatively agreed to this week, and once it was made public, a lot of concerns were raised around it, especially on

4:34 the part of House Republicans. So uh, there’s going to be a struggle here to put something together, and we will be at the table every step of the way. And I also think as we look at the next Congress, we are going to be really really well situated to resume the fight on the AM Radio for Every Vehicle

4:51 Act if that’s what we need to do.

4:53 Speaker 1 Curtisally get president of the c and CEO of the National Association Broadcasting, keep us informed, and we’ll keep all our listeners informed.

5:03 Speaker 2 Thank you for calling it, happy to do it, Thank you all, and thanks to your listeners for all the support of this important legislation. We wouldn’t have done it without your listeners. Thank you.