WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown stretches into its fourth week, House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers warned Friday that the agency overseeing the nation’s nuclear stockpile plans to furlough most of its staff.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is about to run out of funding and could furlough about 80% of its staff, according to the Armed Services Committee.
“These are not employees that you want to go home,” Rogers, R-Saks, said at a press conference with House GOP leadership. “They’re managing and handling a very important strategic asset for us. They need to be at work and being paid.”
Rogers said the ongoing shutdown, which currently has no end in sight, has “very real national security implications.”
“We’re in the middle of contract negotiations for nuclear submarines, for destroyers, (and) for aircraft carriers,” he said, referring to the reconciliation bill. “All that had to stop because of this. We have personnel that are supposed to be analyzing our intelligence gathering. They’ve gone home.”
President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to use unobligated funds earlier this month to pay service members who were set to miss their first paycheck Wednesday during the shutdown. But the chairman said if the funding lapse continues, it will become harder to find a way to pay troops moving forward.
“I do want you to know that option is not going to be available in two weeks for their next paycheck,” Rogers told reporters.
And hundreds of thousands of federal civilian employees have not been paid, whether they have been furloughed or are still required to work during the past three weeks.
If the impasse in Congress persists until the troops’ next pay day, Oct. 31, Congress could consider a stand-alone military pay bill. But whether one ends up on the House floor is up to Republican leadership. If legislation lands on the House floor, Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Birmingham, said he would likely support it.
“I’m looking at doing something myself that would allow the president in these emergency situations brought on by the failure of Congress to do its job, to be able to use unobligated funds,” Palmer told Alabama Daily News in an interview.
The congressman said he wants to use the unobligated funds to help pay border patrol agents, federal law enforcement, TSA workers and air traffic controllers, along with the military. Palmer has been having conversations about what that could look like in practice and could potentially draft up legislation to tackle it.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he “agreed” with ensuring military members get paid, but said the same needs to be done for the rest of the federal workers who are missing paychecks.
“Republicans should be back here in Washington working with us to reopen the government,” Jeffries told reporters last week.
The House will be out this week, for the fifth week in a row. Speaker Mike Johnson continues to exert pressure on the Senate to pass the short-term Republican spending measure.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate failed to advance an annual spending bill to fund the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2026. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., voted for the bill. Sen. Tommy Tubervile did not vote. He was in Montgomery Thursday. Just three Democrats joined Republicans to advance the bill, falling short of the 60-vote threshold.
“This is what we’re here to do,” Britt told ADN before the vote. “This is actually what we’re supposed to be doing is passing appropriations bills.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said before Thursday’s vote that Democrats wanted to see the spending bill that funds the Labor, Education and Health departments added onto the defense one.
“It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people in terms of healthcare, in terms of housing, in terms of safety,” Schumer told reporters.
Also on Thursday, the continuing resolution failed to advance in the Senate for the tenth time. Senators return to Washington Monday night. The chamber is expected to vote on the stopgap bill again next week.