Pruitt: EPA can operate for at least a week of shutdown

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to operate for at least one week if government funding lapses and causes a shutdown.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt emailed employees Friday, saying they should show up to work as normal Monday if Congress doesn’t come to a funding agreement.

“At this time EPA has sufficient resources to remain open for a limited amount of time in the event of a government shutdown. All EPA employees should follow their normal work schedule for the week of January 22, 2018,” he wrote in the agency-wide note.

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But if the shutdown extends after the first week, the situation would be iffy. Pruitt told workers to stay tuned if a funding bill isn’t passed by Jan. 26.

The EPA had an existing contingency plan for shutdowns that called for many of the agency’s 14,000 or so employees to stay home.

But earlier Friday, spokesman Jahan Wilcox said that plan, last updated in September, should not be relied upon.

“The plan on the website is required to be put on the site as a contingency plan, but it doesn’t necessarily accurately reflect what our current plans will be. To take that plan and deduce what is actually going to happen is not accurate reporting,” he said at the time.