The White House is “reviewing and updating” plans for shuttering federal agencies should the Senate fail to pass legislation to avert a government shutdown over the weekend.
The House passed a bill funding the government Friday morning, yet it’s unclear if the Senate will also pass it before Friday’s quickly approaching midnight deadline.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday that President Joe Biden believed that the Senate could move the bill to his desk in time to avert a shutdown, but she confirmed that the administration is preparing a “contingency” plan for a temporary shuttering of the government.
“Congress can prevent this, this partial shutdown. We believe there’s still time to do that,” Jean-Pierre said during Friday’s press briefing. “So I want to be very clear here. But like every other agency, we are reviewing and updating our contingency plan. This is something that we do regularly, and we’ll have more to share, obviously, once that is finalized.”
“Federal employees, just across the government, we’ll furlough, and that includes White House staff, just to give you a little bit of what that would look like,” she said. “There’s still time for Congress to prevent a partial shutdown. This doesn’t have to be. This doesn’t have to be, and obviously, we’re always, like every agency, we’ll look at all options.”
The White House published contingency plans for shuttering federal offices during a government shutdown threat in the fall of 2023.
The Senate is expected to pass the government funding bill, but holdups from any of the lawmakers could block Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) from bringing the legislation to the floor for a vote Friday night.
Congressional lawmakers were scheduled to depart Washington, D.C., for a 16-day recess at the end of this week, so there’s a strong likelihood that Schumer could schedule a vote for Sunday if any senator objects to an expedited vote Friday evening.
The legislation in question includes $1.2 trillion in appropriations for the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Treasure, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services. The bill also includes funding for the Small Business Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, certain congressional offices, and the federal judiciary.
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You can watch Friday’s briefing in full below.
