JOHN LAURETIG REMEMBERS the filthy bathrooms, the overflowing trash cans and the community of people who rallied to clean up Joshua Tree National Park the last time the U.S. Government shut down.
For more than a month from December 2018 through January 2019, thousands of National Park Service employees were furloughed nationwide — but the Trump administration kept many national parks open.
Unsupervised, visitors drove through wilderness and historic sites, camped where they weren’t supposed to, and vandalized plants and buildings at parks across California. The trash — and the feces — piled up. In the days after the shutdown ended, park staff found at least 1,665 clumps of toilet paper littering Death Valley alone, where an estimated half-ton of human waste had been left outside the restrooms.
“It was insane to leave the gates open and tell the staff not to show up in the park — for our public lands, and all of our special places in this country, to be unprotected,” said Lauretig, a retired law enforcement park ranger and president of the Friends of Joshua Tree nonprofit.
Now, facing the prospect of another imminent shutdown, conservation groups and retired park service employees including Lauretig are calling to keep the gates locked at national parks and historic landmarks.
They’re among many Californians bracing for the shutdown, which is expected to begin Wednesday unless Democrats and Republicans can make a deal by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday.
As of now, the parties appear far apart, although President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are expected to meet today. Democratic leaders in Congress are demanding that Republicans reverse Medicaid cuts made in Trump’s signature tax and spending bill earlier this year and extend Biden-era subsidies used by a majority of Affordable Care Act enrollees.
In response, the Trump administration has floated firing federal workers en masse if the shutdown occurs.
“Democrats are hoping to use the one bit of leverage that they have left in Washington at this time to make it clear what they stand for,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “And the question is: Can they hold out against the political and policy pain that Donald Trump is hoping to impose by threatening more layoffs of government employees?”
The federal government shut down three times during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Each one presents a hardship for government employees, who are either furloughed or obliged to work without pay.
About 150,000 federal employees work in California, not counting the military service members who also will go without pay during a shutdown.
In the past when facing possible federal shutdowns, the state had a contingency plan to try to avoid disruptions in certain services. In late 2023, it planned to pay one month’s worth of federal food assistance early to advance aid to families in the event of a shutdown.
But this year there’s no such commitment yet from the Department of Finance, as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration weighs the possibility of a lengthy shutdown.
“There isn’t an open-ended long-term line of credit where the state’s general fund can be assumed to make up for any federal fund shortfall,” finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said.
Here’s a look at what Californians can expect to happen if a shutdown occurs this week.
Social Security and health care
Most Californians shouldn’t worry about a federal shutdown impacting their Social Security benefits or their health care access in the near term.
About 6.5 million Californians receive benefits through the Social Security Administration and those checks are expected to continue going out during a shutdown.
But, customer service could suffer depending on how many employees are told to stay home, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare.
That includes “benefit verifications, earnings record corrections and updates, overpayments processing, and replacing Medicare cards. The level of disruption will depend on how many (Social Security Administration) employees the Trump administration deems ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ during the shutdown,” Max Richtman, the organization’s president, said in a written statement.
Medicaid and Medicare, which pay for health care for low-income individuals, people with disabilities and seniors, are mandatory programs that are exempt from the annual appropriations process.
Jan Emerson-Shea, spokesperson for the California Hospital Association, said “essential services” like insurance payments to hospitals and doctors will continue.
Some discretionary programs, however, like food stamps and benefits for women, infants and children may be impacted by a shutdown.
One group that could be disproportionately affected by even a brief federal shutdown are native and indigenous populations. Many of the 723,000 American Indians living in California get health care at clinics that are funded through federal grants. The clinics are often small and may have very little reserves to weather a funding pause, said Nanette Star, policy director for the California Consortium for Urban Indian Health.
“Even a short shutdown can mean staff furloughs, service cuts, patient service delays,” Star said.
Airports and travel
You’ll be able to fly and take trains during a government shutdown, but you might experience more delays.
That’s because air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents are among the government employees who would be expected to show up for work without getting paid. The longer a shutdown drags out, the more likely it is that the system will strain and workers will call in sick.
The U.S. Travel Association, which advocates for the industry, released a statement last week that included a survey showing many people would cancel or postpone travel during a shutdown, which it argued would ripple through the economy.
“A shutdown is a wholly preventable blow to America’s travel economy — costing $1 billion every week — and affecting millions of travelers and businesses while placing unnecessary strain on an already overextended federal travel workforce,” said Geoff Freeman, the organization’s president.
Wildfires and disasters
A federal shutdown won’t ground firefighters, but could slow the money that pays for future disaster prep.
Nick Schuler, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said the agency does not expect a shutdown to affect its “ability to respond to and aggressively attack fires” and will continue to operate as normal. In past shutdowns, he said, U.S. Forest Service firefighters have still been available for emergency response and pointed to California’s “robust Master Mutual Aid System,” which ensures resources respond regardless of jurisdiction.
Still, he cautioned that what keeps engines running today might not pay for the prevention work of tomorrow: “Any disruption to grant funding that supports fire prevention and wildfire resiliency could have negative impacts,” he said.
Newsom’s office said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would keep “core life-saving operations” going during a shutdown but that payments to states would stall and recovery efforts would be put on hold. That means Californians could see first responders in action but face delays in reimbursement or recovery projects.
Other science agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey could face interruptions that affect California’s disaster readiness, the governor’s spokesperson said.
National parks
National parks supporters are worried that the Trump administration again would send home workers but leave open the gates.
That’s “a recipe for even more disaster,” said Kate Groetzinger, communications manager at the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental advocacy group. “It will be worse this time than it was last time around, simply because the parks are already struggling.”
She was referring to federal staffing cuts the Trump administration carried out earlier this year. The National Parks Conservation Association estimates that the National Park Service has lost 24% of its permanent staff since Trump’s second term began, and left thousands of seasonal positions unfilled.
If a shutdown does occur, the association projects daily losses of $1 million in fee revenue for the parks, and $77 million for the gateway communities that surround them.
Morale among National Park workers is bad already — and a shutdown would make it worse, said Bernadette Johnson, a former superintendent of Manzanar National Historic Site, where during World War II the U.S. Government incarcerated thousands of Japanese Americans.
“The attack has just been so furious. And I think that federal employees are being demonized, as these lazy bureaucrats that we are not … It breaks my heart to watch,” Johnson said. “The people left behind are holding all of that work now, because the work didn’t go away.”
A spokesperson for the The National Park Service said the agency is reviewing and updating plans for a lapse in funding.
However a shutdown may play out, Lauretig over at Joshua Tree said he’s ready.
“I still have a loft (full) of toilet paper, trash bags, bleach, cleaning materials, gloves waiting for the next event — which, you know, could be imminent.”
This story originally appeared in CalMatters.