The government might shut down tonight, and every sector of American life could be impacted.
Later today, the Senate is set to vote again on a stopgap bill that Republicans are gunning to pass. If approved, the bill would temporarily fund the government until another funding bill is agreed upon. But, at least for now, Democratic lawmakers are standing firm in their opposition to the bill, demanding the inclusion of healthcare policies like the reversal of Medicaid cuts and the extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
The regular annual appropriations bill funds most of the government, and it expires at midnight tonight. If Republicans don’t make concessions on a new bill or successfully convince Democrats to yield by then, the government will shut down. That reality is looking increasingly likely after a Monday afternoon meeting between Democratic and Republican leaders, including Trump, didn’t bear any fruit.
If the government shuts down, many departments and agencies will be without adequate funding, leading to wide-scale layoffs and disruptions to federal work.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has asked agencies to prepare to fire employees who are not considered “essential,” per The Washington Post. The looming potential layoffs would also be coming at a time when hundreds of thousands of federal employees are accepting buyouts given under Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. In fact, so many employees are set to leave the U.S. payroll this week that the federal government is facing its largest single-year exodus of civil servants in almost 80 years, according to Reuters.
The shutdown-induced layoffs are going to be the cherry on top, especially for key industries like transportation and cybersecurity.
More pressure on air traffic
The existing appropriations bill that expires tonight only provided 17% of the funding for the Department of Transportation. If the government shuts down, most DOT programs like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration’s airport grant program will continue to be funded through the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and Airway Trust Fund.
But the Department will lose about $25.5 billion in new appropriations, senior fellow at the ENO Center for Transportation Jeff Davis told Gizmodo, and that will be felt on the operations side of the FAA.
For the transportation sector, this can mean flight delays and cancellations. Air traffic controllers and some TSA workers will be expected to work without pay, under the “protection of life and property” exception. But anyone else is at risk of getting furloughed.
During the last government shutdown, from December 2018 to January 2019, under Trump’s first administration, pilots were unable to get medical certification, and FAA meetings about runway safety were cancelled.
The shutdown went on for 33 days, which is a record in U.S. history, and only ended when 10 air traffic controllers called out sick and shut down travel at LaGuardia Airport in New York, further causing delays nationwide. The disruption in travel forced Trump to cave to Democratic demands and agree to a temporary funding bill.
The air travel industry is at a particularly sensitive time, going into this potential shutdown. The FAA faces a critical shortage of air traffic controllers, and air traffic is already mired in safety and staffing concerns. Authorities are still dealing with the aftermath of a terrifying Newark Airport incident where the airport lost all communication with planes for about 90 seconds, and a deadly crash in D.C. airspace at the beginning of the year.
“This shutdown threat is coming at a critical moment —on the heels of Congress approving $12.5 billion to modernize the FAA’s antiquated traffic control system; amid the DOT “supercharging” hiring to get air traffic control facilities fully staffed and the TSA reporting record numbers of travelers through checkpoints,” airline industry trade association Airlines for America said in a press statement on Tuesday.
Cybersecurity bill on the line
There’s a lot on the line from a cybersecurity standpoint, too. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which operates under the Department of Homeland Security and works to protect the country from physical and cybersecurity threats, is set to lose 1,651 employees in the event of a shutdown. That equals roughly two-thirds of the entire agency.
The agency has already faced considerable loss of funding and personnel this year. One-third of CISA employees have left the agency since Trump took office in January, according to Axios. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem expressed her interest in shrinking the agency even before her confirmation, saying that the agency’s investigations of online foreign disinformation campaigns had gone “far off mission.” CISA has since reduced its work on countering online disinformation. Some experts worry that further defunding of the agency will make the country more susceptible to cyber attacks.
The appropriations bill is also acting as a clog of sorts for unrelated congressional action, as members won’t move on to other bills before the government shutdown is averted. Also set to expire tonight is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which allows tech companies to share internet traffic information and other user data with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (and from there, the NSA, DoD, and FBI) for cybersecurity purposes.
Last week, a group of bipartisan cybersecurity leaders penned a letter asking Congress to prioritize the reauthorization of the act.
“An erosion of intergovernmental and public-private information sharing, particularly in the wake of recent cuts to federal programs and personnel, would pose significant risks to national security and our collective cyber defense,” the letter said.