This month, the nation’s capital has been swept up in the frenzy over President Trump’s takeover of the city’s police department and the deployment of National Guard troops (the White House says crime is “out of control,” while the police statistics show crime is trending downwards).
But with Labor Day fast approaching, a different (yet very familiar) kind of turmoil will grip Washington: will the federal government shut down?
The current fiscal year ends September 30. Congress has yet to pass any of the 12 annual appropriations bills that set funding levels for the new year (although some have been passed by one chamber or the other). With less than 20 legislative days between Labor Day and the end of the month, finding agreement on those bills in the narrowly divided Congress will be almost impossible.
This is no surprise: since 1977, Congress has passed all its appropriations bills by the deadline a grand total of four times, the last being in 1997. In fact, for most of the last decade, Congress has not passed any of the funding bills by the end of the fiscal year.
When that happens, Congress needs to pass a short-term “continuing resolution,” or CR, to keep federal agencies running until they can finish their work. This year, Congress passed a full-year CR since it could not pass any funding bills at all.
But it’s far from certain that Congress will be able to pass a CR this time around, even if that means a government shutdown would ensue.
There are a few reasons for this. First, Democrats are still smarting from the internal angst about supporting the CR that kept government running back in March. A number of Senate Dems opposed it, hoping to use that as leverage to force the Trump administration to allocate spending Congress previously appropriated. But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) backed the CR, bringing along with him enough other Democrats to help it pass. This outraged a lot of Democrats around the country who wanted their party to fight Trump harder. This may make it more likely that Democrats don’t accede this time. (A CR would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, meaning that at least seven Democrats would need to support moving it forward.)
Second, Democrats are worried that the White House will send Congress a “pocket recission” before the end of the year. As noted previously in ACRASphere, if the President sends Congress a recissions request less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year (i.e., mid-August or later) and Congress fails to act on the request, the administration can let the clock run out and not spend the money. While many constitutional experts say that such a move is illegal, some on Capitol Hill are anticipating the White House will try it, which could further poison the waters and prompt Democrats to oppose a CR.
Last but not least, a CR could founder due to opposition from Republicans themselves. A group of House GOP members held their noses and voted for the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this summer, even though it increased the deficit. Without an ironclad promise of further spending cuts, members of this cohort could try to block a CR in the House.
There have been many instances where Congress teetered on the brink of a government shut down, avoiding disaster at the last second. But there have been plenty of times when one side (or both) believed a shutdown was the best way to go.
To be clear, a government shutdown is not good for anybody, including federal workers and contractors who would be left with a great deal of uncertainty. Studies also show that shutdowns cost the economy billions of dollars, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimating that the 2018-19 shutdown reduced Gross Domestic Product by $11 billion. But with partisan tensions running high, there’s no guarantee that federal agencies will remain open come October 1.
Stay tuned to ACRASphere for updates as the calendar flips to September.
FCC Requests Comments on Changes to NEPA, NHPA Rules
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), seeking public comment on how it should revise its rules implementing the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and other environmental review processes.
The FCC states that the NPRM comes on the heels of regulatory and legal developments surrounding NEPA, including the Supreme Court’s Seven Counties decision and the elimination of CEQ’s NEPA regulations. The FCC adds that, “[g]iven the Commission’s environmental rules are entwined with our historic preservation rules, we also seek comment on any impact to our [NHPA] framework and examine what rule changes, if any, might be appropriate.”
In March, CTIA – The Wireless Association requested that the FCC revise its rules to provide that wireless facility deployments pursuant to a geographic area license that do not require antenna structure registration are not major federal actions under NEPA or undertakings under NHPA.
ACRA urged the FCC to reject CTIA’s petition, stating that the petition “seeks to undermine more than two decades of collaborative work by the federal government, industry, states, Tribes and others to ensure a sensible balance between improvements to our telecommunications infrastructure and compliance with federal law.”
The FCC is accepting comments on their NPRM until September 18, 2025
SBA Proposes Increase in Monetary Size Standards for Some Small Businesses
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is proposing to increase its monetary based small business size definitions for a number of industries based on their NAICS codes, including some that CRM firms use.
The SBA’s proposal would increase size standards for 263 industries, including those with the NAICS codes below:
| NAICS Code | Current Size Standard ($ millions) | Proposed Size Standard ($ millions) |
| 541360 Geophysical Surveying and Mapping Services | $28.5 | $29 |
| 541720 Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities | $28 | $31 |
| 712120 Historical Sites | $13 | $21 |
Other NAICS codes commonly used by CRM firms – including 541620 Environmental Consulting Services and 541690 Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services – would remain at their current levels under the proposal.
The SBA is accepting comments on the proposal until October 21, 2025.