As the government funding deadline looms and the House is until Wednesday, government agencies, including the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, are preparing for the possibility of a shutdown.
If no eleventh-hour stopgap is agreed to, a shutdown could start at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday Oct. 1, just after the end of fiscal 2025.
A National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor Monday that the agency does not have a publicly available contingency plan published online at this time. However, DOE’s document “Operating in the event of a lapse in appropriations,” last updated in December 2024, says NNSA would continue operations using available balances until expired, and “upon exhaustion of all available balances” to only continue functions essential and exempt from shutdown related to “safety of human life.”
The transport of nuclear weapons are included in exceptions so that even in the event of an appropriations lapse, the stockpile would be transported to secure locations. Contractors, as of December 2024, must come up with their own contingency plans, as they are not included in the DOE or NNSA’s plan.
In addition to security, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management would likely keep around enough of a skeleton crew to do nuclear project monitoring sufficient to protect the public and the environment.
During the last shutdown, the longest shutdown in the U.S. that lasted 34 days between December 2018 and January 2019, federal employees for DOE were ordered to continue reporting to work as scheduled.
Meanwhile, federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (now named the Department of War), have released their own contingency plans for how it will operate in the event of a shutdown. Included in exceptions is any response to emergencies that would affect nuclear reactor safety or nuclear weapons.
If a funding deal for fiscal 2026 is not reached by midnight on Oct. 1, the government will run out of money and cease all non-essential federal functions until leaders can agree to funding levels. Since not all 12 appropriations bills have been passed and signed into law by the president, Congress must come up with a continuing resolution (CR), or a stopgap funding measure to continue the previous fiscal year’s funding for a certain amount of time.
While such a measure to fund the government until Nov. 21, and to include exceptions to raise funding for NNSA past fiscal 2025 levels if necessary, did pass the House, it did not pass in the Senate, and both Republicans and Democrats are playing a game of chicken as the House went into recess last week and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called for recess this Monday and Tuesday as well in an attempt to force Democrats into a deal.
According to NBC News, President Donald Trump is talking with Republican and Democratic Party congressional leaders to try to reach an eleventh hour deal.