The 2025 Government Shutdown is terrible for the environment.

Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. But instead of doing their jobs, they spent more than six months dragging their feet, stoking culture wars, and tearing down green energy investments, conservation programs, and healthcare access. On September 30, 2025, the government ran out of budgeted funds, but they neglected to do the important and difficult work to put together a budget and address funding for critical programs that make sure we have access to healthcare.

EnviroVoters’ Congressional Climate Champions are in D.C. right now, ready to fight for us and negotiate a reopening of the government—but Speaker Johnson has refused to call Republican legislators back to Congress for negotiations, making us all poorer, sicker and less safe while they delay action.

Here’s a breakdown of what a government shutdown is, what the environmental impacts are, and what we can do about it.

What is a government shutdown?

Typically, our government wouldn’t get as far as a shutdown, because our representatives would work together on negotiations, concessions, and come together to agree on a solution. That solution could have been as simple as a continuing resolution, which simply extends the same budget for a short time until they can finalize something more permanent. In this case, the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ that passed in July made massive cuts to the Affordable Care Act, driving up healthcare costs across the nation. Without subsidies to the Affordable Care Act, our insurance rates are skyrocketing—so Democrats are demanding a continuing resolution that includes healthcare subsidies now to keep our county affordable for all.

But instead, Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are refusing to negotiate with Democrats on even the most modest adjustments to preserve a basic level of healthcare for Americans.

During a government shutdown, government agencies slow to a stop. The White House Budget Office—led by Project 2025 author Russell Vought—decides what services are essential, and those employees will be required to continue to work without pay until the government starts back up. All other non-essential employees are furloughed (no work, no pay) until the shutdown ends.

While you or I might consider park rangers and firefighters to be essential staff, Vought disagrees. Instead, he’s prioritizing things like permits and leases for oil and gas drilling as ‘essential’ during this shutdown.

This is a massive deal, because government workers no longer have paychecks coming in, with no clear end in sight. Contractors for the federal government like cleaners, janitors, security guards, and other staffers often don’t receive any back pay at all after a shutdown. And the Trump administration has threatened to illegally withhold back pay for salaried federal workers and even use this as an excuse for mass layoffs, escalating the crisis.

How does a government shutdown affect the environment?

Government shutdown environmental impacts can be devastating—and we can look back at the longest shutdown in American history, which lasted for 35 days in 2019 during the last Trump presidency, to see exactly what’s at risk today.

During the 2019 shutdown, parks were left open. This had huge, devastating consequences. Because they were unprotected, the parks suffered damages like vandalized archeological sites, illegal offroading that destroyed sensitive ecosystems, piles of garbage polluting the environment, and overflowing sewage from unmaintained infrastructure. A lot of this damage was permanent—and the damage that wasn’t permanent took months and billions of dollars to fix.

This year, we’re at even more of a risk for tremendous damage and huge burdens on our National Parks and environmental protections. Because of DOGE cuts earlier this year, 24% of National Park staff were fired—doubling down on our already strained ability to protect the parks from vandalism, infrastructure collapse, and ecological damage during this shutdown.

And other agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, that regulate and track our air and water quality to keep them clean and safe have been shuttered as well. Shutting down these agencies halts cleanups and inspections for waterways, drinking water supply, and hazardous waste sites. It suspends wildlife monitoring, marine debris removal, and management that fishing communities rely on.

The driest months of the year are arriving in California, creating an even more elevated risk of wildfires erupting. Normally, our local and state fire departments rely on emergency assistance for large blazes from the federal government—but understaffed federal fire departments won’t be reliable to help protect us during a shutdown.

The slowing of the outdoor recreation industry, which created $56.3 billion in economic output for National Parks alone last year, could be devastating for rural communities that rely on outdoor recreation for their economy.

What is EnviroVoters doing about it?

EnviroVoters is leading the way, in community education, driving messaging, and holding leaders accountable not only for their votes on the Big Ugly Bill—but for being complicit in this shutdown. This starts with an event our team put on in September to highlight the importance of public transportation and public land investments, but it continues with supporting climate champions as they explain the impacts of this shutdown, and with our organizing team holding representatives like Valadao, Kiley, and Obernolte accountable for their inaction in Congress.

There is so much to do, but this moment will define California’s leadership and EnviroVoters will steward this action so that we can have the best outcomes for communities and our state throughout the duration of this shutdown.

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