A partial shutdown of the federal government has ended after three days, with the enactment of another short stopgap spending measure. A bipartisan Senate group helped to break the logjam in that chamber. The new legislation, which President Trump signed on Jan. 22, extends funding through Feb. 8. But it doesn’t include further emergency relief aid for rebuilding areas hit by storms and wildfires, such as Puerto Rico and California. The stopgap also doesn’t include a provision to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shields from deportation undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children. Many Senate Democrats’ desire to include DACA in the short-term spending bill helped to spark the shutdown.
Brian Turmail, an Associated General Contractors of America spokesman, said, “We haven’t heard anything from our members about their being impacted by the brief shutdown.” Most AGC firms in the federal sector are working on jobs funded by fiscal year 2017 appropriations and thus weren’t affected, Turmail added.
The furlough picture was uneven across and within federal agencies. For example, according to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s plan, none of the Federal Highway Administration’s 2,784 workers was subject to a furlough because their operations are funded through contract authority. But more than 90% of the Federal Transit Administration’s 553 positions were affected.