As the Christmas holiday approached Washington seemed to be hurtling toward a partial federal government shutdown, as Democrats, Republicans, and President Trump debated over what level of funding for a southern border wall to include in the final package of FY19 appropriations legislation. Because EPA’s FY19 funding will be included in this spending package, the debate over the wall threatened to further delay the agency’s receipt of its final FY19 budget.
Regardless of the duration of any government shutdown, it seemed increasingly likely that any stopgap spending deal would simply continue current funding levels for EPA into the new year, ultimately giving the incoming Democratic House majority a significant influence over the agency’s final numbers. An earlier tentative deal would have extended current EPA funding until February 8, but President Trump and conservative House Republicans rejected it for not including additional border security funds.
EPA was not expected to immediately halt operations in the event of a shutdown. According to a memo from Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the agency had enough funding on hand to support continued operations until at least December 28 – assuming that a spending deal was not reached by then.