From the U.S. Treasury Department to the Export-Import Bank of the United States, agencies in all corners of the federal government are preparing for a possible shutdown next week.
If Congress doesn’t reach a deal to keep the government running past October 1—the current budget is set to expire sometime after the Monday-night deadline for a new budget or continuing resolution—hundreds of thousands of federal workers could face furloughs. Only government employees who receive pay from sources other than annual appropriations, as well as federal workers who are needed to perform work authorized or implied by law, to carry out the president’s constitutional duties and powers, and to protect property or lives, could report to work during a shutdown.
The Office of Management and Budget has compiled links to all of the available agency contingency plans.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies that don’t depend on appropriations bills would be spared. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office also would keep its doors open “for at least a few weeks” due to a reserve of fee collections it has, acting Director Teresa Rea said in a memo to employees.
But many agencies would have limited operations and few employees they could legally call on for help.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is among those agencies facing shuttered doors. If the government shuts down, the CFTC would have “a bare minimum level of oversight and surveillance of the futures markets, clearing operations, and intermediaries,” according to a 2011 memo. Of its 675 employees from that estimation, 25 would work.
A possible shutdown is “grave news for consumers,” CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton said in a statement last week.
“Under a shutdown scenario, government regulators will be handcuffed in our ability to go after crooks who are trying to evade our oversight and protection of markets,” he said. “You can bet the ‘do-badders’ are licking their chops.”
CorpCounsel.com compiled a list of several agencies and some of the effects a shutdown would have on them using plans they issued in 2011. The National Law Journal, a sibling publication of CorpCounsel.com, earlier this week examined what would happen to the U.S. Justice Department and the federal judiciary if the government closes down.
Below is a sampling of shutdown plans for other key agencies in Washington, D.C.:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Total Employees: 2,600
- Employees Retained: 131
- Activities that would continue include:
- Docketing new charges
- Examination of new charges for prompt action if life or property is in danger
- Activities that wouldn’t continue include:
- Mediations
- Litigation in federal courts, if courts grant time extension requests
