Shutdown pain? Not much (yet)
The Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and other government agencies are closed due to the government shutdown, which enters its sixth day today. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
COEUR d’ALENE — The impact of the partial federal shutdown has varied among federal agencies. Local offices of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have shut down during the lapse in federal funding.
U.S. Forest Service spokesman Shoshana Cooper said Wednesday that all local USFS offices are closed until the end of the shutdown. The agency has some excepted employees, but all offices in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests are closed, she said.
The BLM website announced that it’s closed during the duration of the shutdown. A representative at the agency’s state office in Boise did not return calls for comment.
However, federal law enforcement agencies have seen little impact, say their representatives.
Jason Chudy, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in Seattle, said day-to-day operations in his agency haven’t been impacted too much by the shutdown. Though the agency is part of the Department of Justice and wasn’t funded, Chudy said most agency employees are excepted service employees. None of the agency’s work with federal firearms and explosives licensees has been impacted, he added.
BATFE has a field office in Spokane.
The FBI has a field office in Spokane and a local office in Coeur d’Alene. An FBI spokesman said that “all FBI agents and support personnel in field offices are considered excepted from furlough. At FBI headquarters, certain personnel are designated as excepted from furlough to provide direction and investigative support to all field operations and select headquarters functions.”