Let’s face it, under any administration, government shutdowns are not good. In the disciplines of climate change mitigation and fishery protection alone, shutdowns force federal agencies to suspend procurement agreements, halt restoration and conservation projects, and freeze funding and contracts midstream, while staff and contractors go unpaid. These impacts disrupt the economy of communities nationwide, while critical floodplain, habitat, and conservation efforts are left in limbo.
But the current government shutdown is different. The Center for American Progress reports that the Trump Administration fired or bought out 20% of Park Service, BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Forest Service employees, and 29,000 employees have been furloughed by the government shutdown, about half the remaining workforce. In addition, for the first time in history, the President of the United States has clearly shown that he has nothing but contempt for a large percentage of the American people - specifically those who didn’t vote for him. According to an October 1 article in the New Republic, in what “appears to be yet another petty, retributive move against states and senators that Trump considers to be his enemy” he vowed to remove almost $8 billion in green transition funding from those “that voted against him in 2024 and is represented by two Democrats in the Senate (where the shutdown fight just happens to be stuck).”
At the beginning of the month, Trump posted on social media that he would meet with White House aides to “determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut…” This action to reduce employees across the government beyond those typically furloughed (and only for Democrats), led Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Md, to accuse the President of engaging in “mafia-style blackmail with his threats ultimately harming the American people.”
Similarly, Trump is using the shutdown to dismantle environmental regulatory standards, and resource extraction continues. Right after the shutdown began, for example, the President reversed a Biden Administration order to ban the Ambler Road in Western Alaska and then ordered the BLM to move forward with the project within 30 days.
Likewise, the Army Corps of Engineers’ Fast-Track permitting process for the Graphite One mine, located in the biologically rich Imuruk Basin on the Seward Peninsula, and which has so far completely omitted input from affected Alaska Native communities, has not skipped a beat despite the shutdown as the agency rushes to permit the mine. The Corps, which released the public notice for the mine’s permit application just before the shutdown, plans to stay on track with the rushed permitting schedule, providing the public a mere 30 days to comment on the application and limit environmental analysis of the impacts of the mine so that they can issue the permit in a record time of less than a year.
The irony in the administration’s endorsement of Graphite One is that the ore will be used to produce lithium batteries for electric cars as part of the green energy transition, something the Trump administration has consistently referred to as a conspiracy created by democrats and a waste of money. At the start of the government shutdown, for example, Office of Management and Budget Director and Project 2025 author Russ Vought, announced on X that OMB is cutting nearly “$8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”[3]
Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on Congress to do something about Trump’s vengeful and illegal actions. While the majority of the public blames Trump and the republicans in power for the shutdown, the republicans have long since given up any attempt to comply with their political mandate to protect the public or the environment from Trump.
At the same time, by holding out for mere table scraps such as Medicare funding, Democrats in Congress may be losing an opportunity to turn the tide against autocracy. According to political commentator Jamelle Bouie, rather than focusing solely on the Medicare issue, we should not accept to a budget deal that permits the administration to continue refusing to honor funding for programs already appropriated by Congress, unilaterally gutting federal programs, illegally redirecting funds, and making unauthorized and secretive expenditures. Bouie said Democrats should “agree to a budget deal that will include some guarantees or mechanisms that can prevent the administration from doing that. That’s simple, easy to understand. No government money for a president who doesn’t obey the law. And it puts the onus on the Republicans who run the government, who have the White House, who have been looking the other way on this stuff.
While the shutdown is devastating to federal programs and workers, communities, and others, it may provide another opportunity for us to save our country. According to Mike Littwin in an opinion piece in the Colorado Sun, Democrats, “it isn’t enough to debate policy. The shutdown needs to be a call to arms (figuratively, of course) against Trump, authoritarianism, and a nonstop assault on the Constitution…It’s time to fight. Long past time. If not now, as the millennia-old call to action warns, when?”
Hope to see you at the nationwide No Kings (2) Rallies this Saturday, October 18.
[1] American Rivers Fact Sheet, Government Shutdown Puts Rivers at Risk.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Meclom Ferguson, Trump Cuts Funding to 16 Blue States That Didn’t Vote for Him Amid the shutdown fight, Donald Trump is increasing pressure on states with two Democratic senators. (Oct. 1, 2025).