Impacts of the federal government shutdown on the Peninsula were not clear Wednesday after Congress failed to pass a measure to continue to fund the government on Tuesday.
Some of the impacts could include:
• Olympic National Park (ONP), which did not immediately respond to an email inquiring about whether the shutdown would affect operations or personnel. A recorded message said the visitor center is open daily from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Reaching the message during business hours indicates that staff are occupied by visitors, the message said.
Meanwhile, a National Park Service contingency plan was linked among other Department of Interior agencies’ contingency plans for operations in the absence of appropriations.
“Employees that are neither excepted nor exempted will be furloughed,” the contingency plan reads. “These employees will typically have no more than four hours to complete their orderly shutdown activities.”
Excepted activities include law enforcement and emergency response, border and coastal protection, and fire suppression for active fires or areas under emergency stabilization. They also cover the protection of federal lands, facilities, waterways and research property, as well as essential public health and safety functions such as ensuring safe drinking water, sewage treatment and the safe use of hazardous materials.
Additional responsibilities include maintaining power production and distribution systems, administering U.S. Park Police annuity benefits, and overseeing First Amendment activities such as permitting and monitoring demonstrations. To support these operations, certain administrative functions like budget, finance, procurement, human resources, communications and IT services may also continue, according to the plan.
Exempted activities include work that can continue using funds not tied to annual appropriations, such as permanent appropriations, unobligated balances, multiyear or no-year funds, mandatory appropriations, allocations from other accounts and reimbursables.
These activities may shift status depending on funding availability, sometimes moving to excepted or furloughed.
Exempted functions also can cover administrative support — including budget and finance, procurement, communications, human resources and information technology — when those services are necessary to carry out exempted operations.
The plan states that some activities that begin exempted can transition into excepted or furlough status or vice versa.
• Local National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) staff did not immediately respond to an email.
A Sept. 29 report from national news outlet Politico stated that federal policy exempts most National Weather Service (NWS) employees from furloughs during government shutdowns because they are designated emergency employees. The report cited a 2024 Office of Personnel Management memo called “Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs.”
NWS is a part of NOAA.
• The U.S. Coast Guard Northwest District did not immediately respond to inquiry.
•A voicemail recording for public affairs at the Navy Region Northwest said, “Due to a lapse in federal funding, employees have been furloughed. Therefore, I’ll be out of the office and unable to monitor or respond to voicemails until the furlough has ended.”
Navy Region Northwest public affairs officers have handled media correspondence for Naval Magazine Indian Island in Jefferson County.
• A communication from Nick Perrine, the Social Security Administration’s chief communications officer, said local offices will remain open to the public but will provide reduced services.
During the shutdown, Social Security clients will still be able to apply for benefits, request an appeal, change their address or direct deposit information, report a death, verify or change their citizenship status, replace a lost or missing Social Security payment, obtain a critical payment, change a representative payee, make a change in their living arrangement or income (SSI recipients only), or obtain a new or replacement Social Security card, Perrine wrote.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
