Sponsors (2)
The bill preserves USAGM's ability to engage foreign audiences and protects Americans from domestic propaganda while providing eventual archival access and cost recovery, but it delays timely domestic access and imposes fees and restrictions that limit transparency and use by researchers and small organizations.
The general public is protected from covert domestic propaganda because the bill restates and clarifies the ban on using USAGM funds to influence U.S. public opinion.
Foreign-policy practitioners and U.S. public diplomacy efforts retain clear authority to produce and distribute information abroad because USAGM keeps its ability to operate internationally.
Students, researchers, and educational institutions will eventually gain domestic access to USAGM films, videos, and audio because the Archivist must make those materials available after a 12-year delay, increasing public access to historical foreign broadcasts.
Researchers, students, and journalists are harmed by a 12-year delay in domestic access, which can impede timely research, accountability, and public scrutiny of U.S. public diplomacy materials.
Nonprofits, small researchers, and educational users may be priced out or blocked because the requirement to secure rights/licenses and pay fees limits their ability to access materials.
Members of Congress and the public may face reduced short-term transparency about current USAGM activities because the domestic dissemination ban has only narrow exceptions.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced December 12, 2025 by Andy Ogles · Last progress December 12, 2025
Authorizes the CEO of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to prepare and distribute information about the United States to foreign audiences through USAGM component networks and media. It preserves the longstanding restriction on using USAGM funds to influence U.S. public opinion and generally bans domestic distribution of USAGM program material, while creating a process for archival domestic access to materials after a 12-year delay and requiring the Archivist of the United States to manage that access and collect fees to cover costs.