The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would remain in operation during a shutdown, but it’s unclear what might happen if it drags out. During the last shutdown, the government nearly ran out of funds for SNAP, which would’ve yanked benefits from 40 million people.
And according to USDA, nearly 7 million pregnant and postpartum recipients of supplemental food aid and their children could lose access to the Women, Infants, and Children program.
“USDA Food and Nutrition Service likely does not have sufficient funding to support normal WIC operations beyond a few days into a shutdown,” an agency spokesperson said.
Advocates for the program warn a shutdown would trigger a “rolling crisis” for families who rely on WIC, as individual state programs run out of funds. The USDA spokesperson noted that states will have to rely on carryover funds or their own state funds “to continue program operations for different amounts of time.”
SCHOOLS
While K-12 schools themselves are largely funded locally, programs like Head Start — which offers academic and other support for 3- and 4-year-olds — and free and reduced lunch programs at schools across the nation, would pause quickly.
Some Head Start agencies could be affected by a hold on HHS grants, and a larger share of students would feel it if the shutdown runs through November. During the 2018-19 shutdown, which lasted 34 days, school leaders were concerned about how they would pay for free and low-cost meals for children without a check from the federal government. And thousands of kids also became newly eligible for these meals when their parents were furloughed.
Some education groups are also concerned about a hiatus in Impact Aid program, which funds the nearly 1,200 school districts on military bases, Native American reservations and other places where the federal government owns land. Funds from the program are appropriated annually and disbursed directly to school districts.
ENERGY
President Joe Biden has made energy and climate issues a top priority of his administration and a shutdown would wreak havoc with that agenda, Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act and even some top Republican priorities.
“Businesses are mobilizing now to incorporate IRA programs into their work,” Erin Duncan, vice president of congressional affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association said in a statement. “Delays in implementation mean delays in investment and, importantly, delays in hiring thousands of workers.”
An offshore oil and natural gas drilling proposal Republicans have been pushing the Interior Department to release — a five-year plan already four years behind schedule — is also likely to sit idle even longer if agency funding lapses in a few days.
An Interior Department spokesperson declined to offer clues on Thursday about what, if anything, the agency has planned in case of a shutdown.
Biden’s lieutenants have also been steadily churning out regulations and even a few weeks’ delay could spell trouble by hampering the administration’s ability to defend them in court or by making them vulnerable to reversals in the next Congress if Republicans make sweeping wins in 2024.
New regulations limiting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector and a long-awaited proposal targeting lead pipes could face delays. Other rules in the pipeline for the coming months include those related to planet-warming hydrofluorocarbons, lead emissions from aircraft and restrictions on several toxic chemicals.
INFRASTRUCTURE
FAA is by far the Transportation Department’s largest division and on a normal day houses more than 80 percent of the agency’s employees. More than one-third of them would be furloughed during a shutdown.
According to the plan from September 2022, 24,822 FAA employees would stay on the job in case of a shutdown because their work is “necessary to protect life and property,” along with 628 officials from other agencies. Thousands of others would stay on the job because they’re not paid out of annual appropriations — if the agency’s reauthorization, which also needs to be passed by Sept. 30, doesn’t lapse.
But the training of new air traffic control specialists would cease. So would aviation rulemaking, facility security inspections, the development and testing new technologies and safety standards, law enforcement assistance support and most functions related to finance, budgeting and administration. Three-quarters of DOT’s inspector’s general’s office would be furloughed.
Air traffic controllers would continue working through a shutdown since they’re deemed as “essential” workers, but technicians and some inspectors that work for the FAA as contractors would likely be furloughed right away.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his top concern with a government shutdown is halting air traffic control training just as the FAA begins to curb a talent drain exacerbated by the pandemic.
“I’d say the ATC training is the thing we’re watching most closely but right now we’re watching all the parts of the agency that could be affected,” Buttigieg said. “A shutdown would be a really difficult situation.”
Even some of the tech industry’s biggest priorities in Washington on manufacturing and infrastructure are also in jeopardy as Capitol Hill barrels toward a shutdown.
Failure to reach a stopgap funding bill by Oct. 1 will mean freezing $52.7 billion in subsidies aimed at bolstering the domestic microchip industry and likely stymie efforts to coordinate and award broadband grants to state governments.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told lawmakers on the House Science Committee Tuesday that her agency is “literally working seven days a week” to finalize the first tranche of dollars from the CHIPS and Science Act funding.
“If there’s a shutdown, it’ll come grinding to a halt,” Raimondo warned. Any delay in funding could imperil a bipartisan effort to bring microchip manufacturing back to U.S. shores, which is seen as a check on China’s tech ambitions.
TAX, FINANCE AND HOUSING
The Treasury Department has yet to release an updated contingency plan for the IRS, but the agency may escape a government shutdown this time because of new funds it received from the Inflation Reduction Act last year.
The IRS contingency plan published last year states the agency would be kept fully operational with those new funds and all employees would be kept on payroll during a shutdown. Yet, there’s uncertainty from their union.
National Treasury Employee Union President Doreen Greenwald told reporters earlier this month that initial conversations with the IRS leadership indicated that employees would continue to work and be fully paid. But a few days later, Greenwald said NTEU members told the union that the IRS was developing a new plan that involved furloughing some workers. Treasury declined to comment.
Wall Street regulators are also bracing for both their rulemaking and enforcement work to come to a near standstill if a shutdown happens, even as financial markets would stay open.
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