Ag Policy Blog

OMAHA (DTN) --- Shortly before midnight Tuesday, the White House sent an order to federal agencies informing them to shutdown.

The White House stated agencies should prepare to close for the first day of Fiscal Year 2014 because of the lack of appropriations. The administration also urged Congress to act quickly on a Continuing Resolution to restore operations.

In a day and night of swift political action, the majority in each chamber of Congress sought to insert its will on the other while arguing that public opinion was on their side. By 9:30 p.m. Eastern time, the Senate had again defeated another House measure with strings attached.

First reports out of the House indicated there would be no more votes Monday night to keep the government operating. The House Rules Committee then was called to meet and voted after 11 p.m. to go into a floor debate for a vote calling for conference talks on the Senate. The House was still debating over a prospective vote to go to conference negotiations when the White House issued its order.

On the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had declared even as the House Rules Committee was meeting that the Senate would reject the House proposal for conference talks in such a short, late timespan.

"We will not go to conference without a clean CR," Reid said.

At midnight, it was unclear how early into the morning the House and Senate would remain in session. At that time, however, members in each chamber were talking about the pros or cons of the health care law, not the appropriation bills for agencies.

The House had voted 228-201 earlier in the evening to again delay Obamacare for a year as part of a budget extension. Another distraction was added as part of a Republican plan to require members of Congress and congressional staffers to be removed from the federal insurance plan and enroll in a health-care exchange. Republicans argued too many groups were getting special exemptions and waivers from immediate participation in insurance requirements. They said this was the reason the law should be delayed.

"No one should shut down the government just to protect special interests," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, pointing to businesses and unions that have gotten delays on implementing the law.

Reid said of that House vote, "They've lost their minds."

President Barack Obama did sign a bill late Monday as well to make sure the military would be funded.

Speaking publicly in the afternoon about the impact of a government shutdown, the president took his turn to blame House Republicans for denying a straight-up vote for a funding plan that did not include strings attached, such as defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Acre. "A shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away," Obama said.

Obama referenced the kind of federal employees who would be hurt, such as "a person working for the Agriculture Department out in some rural community, whose out there helping some farmers -- making sure they make some modest profit for all the hard work they are putting in" or other federal staffers at the Veterans administration or Housing and Urban Development.

DTN Political Correspondent Jerry Hagstrom reported Monday how USDA will respond on Tuesday.

Food stamp benefits would be delivered for the month of October, forest fires will continue to be fought, meat and poultry will still be inspected, grain inspection will continue, laboratory animals will be fed and the rural development division will still monitor government loans.

But USDA will not release any new production statistics, most of the rest of USDA will shut down and its website may go dark.

The situation at the Agricultural Marketing Service is complicated because some AMS programs are funded through user fees and will continue to operate while others are funded through appropriations and will not.

Those are the main points from a DTN analysis of the shutdown plans and procedures for each division posted on the USDA website late Friday. USDA mission areas varied in the detail of their shutdown plans, however.

Meat, poultry and egg product inspections will continue, and 87% of the agency’s 9,633 employees will be still on the job.

The Farm Service Agency will close down all offices, including county offices, except for emergency and natural disasters response. The agency can continue to use “remaining discretionary prior year unobligated balances (carryover, within authorized apportionment unless the debt ceiling is reached)” and user fees collected under the U.S. Warehouse Act.

Some Agricultural Marketing Service programs such as market news and marketing orders and agreements would be shutdown.

Agency legal counsels, working with senior agency managers, determine which employees are designated to handle “excepted” and “non-excepted” functions,” according to the USDA shutdown plan.

If the shutdown takes place, the guidance to employees says that all non-excepted employees will be expected to report to work on Tuesday “for the sole purpose of engaging in orderly shutdown activities.”

In most cases, the guidance says, furloughed employees should take no more than three or four hours to “provide necessary notices and contact information, secure their files, complete time and attendance records, and otherwise make preparations to preserve their work.”

But some agencies have said it will take several days to complete an orderly shutdown.

Other USDA programs would remain open because they are not funded through appropriations. Those would include dairy grading cotton classing and grading, tobacco inspections, specialty crop inspections and meat grading.

Most activities at the Natural Resources Conservation Service will cease except for the protection of life and property.

At the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, firefighters and law enforcement personnel needed to protect equipment, life and property will stay on the job, and the service will retain its capability to respond to respond to emergencies and natural disasters.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will continue operations and eligible households will still receive monthly benefits for October.

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