US government shutdown

Government Agencies Have To Tear Down Their Websites, Even If It's Cheaper To Leave Them Up

Business Insider,

1 October, 2013

Underscoring the peculiarity of the wealthiest nation on the planet partially shutting down its government because it doesn't have enough money, multiple government agencies had to take down their websites today.

But there's a catch. For many of these websites, it's entirely possible that the cost of taking their site down and eventually spooling it back up exceeds  the cost of just leaving it running without updates. 

One would think — if the actual goal of a shutdown were to conserve limited cash resources — the government would prefer the cheaper option. 

Actually, as far as the federal government is concerned, this has zero bearing on whether the sites will remain online, as outlined in this memo from the Office of Management and Budget yesterday:

What The Shutdown Means For Energy And Environmental Programs

Think Progress,

1 October, 2013

As you’ve probably heard, the U.S. government has shut down for the first time in 17 years.

That means many of the agencies responsible for weather, climate and energy regulation are largely shuttered as well, forced to whittle down their staffs to only their most essential employees. These include:

The Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is taking one of the biggest hits of any federal agency — about 96 percent of the agency’s staff aren’t coming to work, meaning the agency, in EPA Chief Gina McCarthy’s words, has “essentially shut down.” The staff that will be coming to work include employees who “ensure continued public health and safety, including safe use of food and drugs and safe use of hazardous materials,” as well as workers who protect federal lands and research property and provide disaster and emergency aid. 

Managers of some Superfund cleanup sites must come to work if stopping the work would pose a threat to human health; pesticide regulators, staff who write and implement major air pollution rules, and staff who are in charge of the EPA’s proposal for renewable fuel standards, on the other hand, will stay home.

National Parks. Google celebrated the 123rd anniversary of Yosemite National Park today; ironically, because the park — and all other national parks, monuments and government-funded museums — is now closed to the public. The oil and gas industry, however, will keep on drilling on public lands, though the process for issuing new oil and gas permits will be halted. Only a few employees will be at work overseeing drilling activities such as “well shut-ins, re-completions, and downhole/equipment changes in drilling/plugging operations.”

The Department of Energy. The DOE is losing 69 percent of its staff. Most employees conducting energy research are staying home during the shutdown, but those employees who oversee nuclear materials and power grids, as well as one employee from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and a few employees responsible for environmental cleanup are still at work.

NASA. The agency is taking the biggest hit of all – 97 percent of its employees are staying home due to the shutdown. Scientists at the international space station, of course, are still at work, and the agency is making sure they’re still being taken care of. NASA’s Asteroid Watch Twitter account, however, is down, which means it won’t be warning the public via social media of potentially dangerous asteroids. The account clarified that “many observatories, astronomers are watching the skies” so at least they’ll be on the lookout, even if they won’t be tweeting.

The good news, however, is that a few government agencies and organizations have managed to skirt the shutdown. Here are a few of the major energy and climate-related exceptions:

The National Weather Service. You’ll still be able to recieve weather forecasts and warnings, because the NWS is considered an essential service. As NOAA, which houses the NWS, explains: “emergency operations that protect against a significant and imminent threat to the safety of human life and property” will remain open, despite the shutdown. At 3,935 employees, the NWS is by far the largest organization within NOAA to remain open, but it’s not the only weather-related organization to avoid the shutdown — the National Hurricane Center, too, will continue to track storms.

Colorado flood relief. FEMA has assured Coloradans that aid to the state devastated by recent flooding will continue. “Our ongoing response operations, such as the individual assistance being provided to survivors of the flooding in Colorado, will not be impacted directly by a government shutdown,” said FEMA spokesperson Dan Watson. “FEMA’s response to disasters and emergencies is funded by the Disaster Relief Fund, which would not initially be affected by a funding lapse for annual appropriations.” However, the roughly 120 Colorado National Guard members working to repair roads and bridges could be told to go home if Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel doesn’t reclassify them as “essential.”

Hurricane Sandy rebuilding. There were worries that a shutdown would halt much of the rebuilding of the East Coast from Superstorm Sandy’s destruction, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says dredging and dune rebuilding projects are already funded, so work on these projects will continue. But there’s a caveat: relief fund recipients will still have access to their money, but all new funding would be halted during the shutdown, which could, as President Obama said Monday, cause some home and business owners to see delays in rebuilding.

The Energy Information Administration. According to one EIA official, the administration has enough funds to stay open until Oct. 11, despite the shutdown. The EIA provides weekly updates on U.S. oil and natural gas inventories as well as periodical information about the state of renewable energy in America.

The Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the National Marine Fisheries Service. Both housed within NOAA, these departments are responsible for air quality and climate monitoring research that ensures “continuity of crucial long-term historical climate records,” and protection and monitoring of endangered ocean species and protected marine areas, respectively. They employ 547 staff members between the two of them, and they both are staying open.

As US Government Shuts 

Down the Poorest Set to Lose 

Most

US Congress fails to pass budget legislation before midnight deadline, shuttering large portions of the government

Common Dreams,

1 October, 2013

For the first time in 17 years the U.S. government began a partial shutdown of government programs Tuesday morning following a failure across the House and Senate to agree on a stop-gap budget proposal before its midnight deadline.

As Wall Street looked shaky among uneasy implications for the economy, Imara Jones at Colorlines points out, "the parts of the government affected by the shutdown disproportionately impact economic opportunity programs for the working poor."

"Historically marginalized communities are likely to the feel the effects of a shutdown acutely as time goes on," Jones states.

According to Jones, those negative consequences include:

• delays in application processes for essential programs such as Medicare and Medicaid
• an impaired ability to fight disease as The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health will be forced to scale back
• closure of the Women Infants and Children Program (WIC)—a food aid program "which covers seven million children and infants, and their mothers"
• cuts in funding for programs designed for children in need such as Head Start, educational services for low income students such as Title I education grants, and student loan and grant application programs
• and much much more

As roughly one million government employees brace themselves for forced furloughs, it is not clear when Congress will squeeze through a budget bill that would end the shutdown.

And as Jones points out:

What’s particularly distressing about the shuttering of the government is that it comes at a time when unemployment remains in the double digits for blacks and Latinos. As the Center for American Progress points out, federal, state and local governments since 2008 have eliminated 750,000 public sector jobs. Given unionization and strong anti-discriminatory hiring practices, people of color are more likely to have jobs in the public sector. This is particularly true for African-Americans, and it’s why joblessness remains so stubborn in communities of color.

The next bill deadline set for the lawmakers is on October 17, when they must decide on whether or not to raise the country's debt ceiling—another decision likely to put Washington in deadlock.

Reuters reports:

The shutdown will continue until Congress resolves its differences, which may be days or months. But the conflict could spill over into the more crucial dispute over raising the federal government's borrowing authority.

A failure to raise the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling would force the country to default on its obligations, dealing a blow to the economy and sending shock-waves around global markets."The key to this is not what happens in Washington," Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis told Reuters. 

"The key is what happens out in the real world. When Joe Public starts rebelling and the financial markets start melting down, then we'll see what these guys do."

At the center of this week's feud was the Republican led House's insistence on including within the bill a provision that would delay or diminish the Obama administration's cherished Affordable Care Act.

The budget bill was repeatedly sent back and forth between the two chambers, who were unwilling to pass the other's version.

The ACA, otherwise known as Obamacare, will not be affected by the shutdown, and as of Tuesday officially began implementation.