The government shutdown prompted this week by the failure of Congress to pass a fiscal year 2014 budget has kept employees home across the federal workforce, although the people charged with ensuring the safety of America's nuclear stockpile and civilian reactors will remain on duty.
Thanks to funding left over from the previous year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it has money to continue normal operations for at least one week. That will allow meetings on the agency's waste confidence decision to proceed as-scheduled this week, according to the NRC's blog. Should the shutdown last longer than a week, the NRC has a contingency plan to keep about 300 of the agency's 3,900 workers on the job. About half of the so-called excepted personnel are resident inspectors at nuclear facilities, with the remainder holding positions deemed necessary to respond in the event of a nuclear emergency. While fees paid by licensees fund nearly all of the NRC's expenses, spending that money still requires a budget approved by Congress.
At the Department of Energy, the consequences of the shutdown are less straightforward, as 3,106 of its employees hold positions funded by sources other than annual appropriations. Additionally, each subagency will continue to operate until its personnel money left over from previous years is exhausted. The DOE's contingency plan ultimately keeps 1,124 of its 13,814 employees on board to protect life and property. Of those excepted employees, 345 work for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
For the time being, though, "Most of DOE's appropriations are multi-year or no-year. In the immediate future, we expect federal employees to continue to report for work as scheduled," an explanation of the contingency plan on the DOE's website read. "A prolonged lapse in appropriations may require subsequent employee furloughs,"