Following an audit released by the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) stressed on Friday the importance of the restructuring of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).
The BBG oversees all U.S. civilian international media.
As chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Royce co-authored a bipartisan bill with Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) to restructure the BBG and to require that compliance reports be made available to lawmakers. The bill is currently awaiting Senate action and is in committee review.
“The independent audit of the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ financial statements highlights the deep structural problems of the agency,” Royce said. “Unfortunately, this audit comes after the Government Accountability Office and Office of the Inspector General reported in January that the BBG suffers from a severely dysfunctional organizational structure and a ‘flawed legislative structure and acute internal dissension.'”
Royce said overwhelming information from the Russian Federation could pose a threat.
“We cannot allow the BBG to continue limping along,” Royce said. “Russian propaganda is dominating the information space in Ukraine and across Eastern Europe; we need U.S. international broadcasters to be effective – more now than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The BBG must be restructured to meet the security challenges we face worldwide.”