Although the looming threat of a shutdown appeared to have dissipated at deadline Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was prepared to keep the lights on for a bit if federal funds dried up because Congress and the White House could not agree on a budget for the 2022 fiscal year that starts after midnight.
Before the Senate scheduled votes Thursday morning related to a new continuing resolution that would keep the government open through early December, and NRC spokesperson told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing Wednesday that the agency was “following the news on Capitol Hill and we are in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget about the potential for a lapse in appropriations.”
The agency had carryover funds to support its operations “for a minimal period of time,” the spokesperson said.
The Department of Energy was also prepared for a lapse. In a Wednesday email to DOE staffers obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, energy secretary Jennifer Granholm’s chief of staff acknowledged that a federal government shutdown could happen unless Congress agrees to some type of short-term spending plan before midnight Thursday.
“In the event of a lapse in appropriations, all DOE employees should continue to report to work according to your usual work schedule,” Tarak Shah said in a “DOE Family” email. “Our COVID-19 maximum telework posture remains in effect.” The federal agency will provide updates as necessary, Shah said.
Congressional Democrats have prepared another stopgap budget, or continuing resolution, to replace the one Senate Republicans filibustered earlier this week. The upper-chamber GOP conference refused to support the first bill because it would raise the national debt ceiling, a necessary step to service the U.S.’s existing debt. The upper-chamber GOP said Democrats should raise the debt limit alone through a weeks-long process called reconciliation.
The first continuing resolution would have left the NRC with 6% less funding than the 2022 appropriations bills that were still working their way through Congress at deadline. The agency’s budget would have remained at around $830 million, rather than the roughly $890 million greenlit by the House and Senate this summer.
Lawmakers had not published the text of the new continuing resolution at deadline.
