Beltway Buzz, October 31, 2025

Shutdown Patience Wearing Thin? It is Day 31 of the 2025 federal government shutdown. If the shutdown lasts through November 5, 2025, it will break the thirty-five–day record (set between 2018 and 2019) for the longest government shutdown. This week, Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate abandoned plans to hold votes on bills to provide pay for certain military personnel and essential personnel, as well as ensure funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). On the bright side, there were indications that senators were talking this week—perhaps because the following impacts of the shutdown are really coming to a head:

• SNAP Benefits. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that, due to the shutdown, it would not fund SNAP, beginning November 1, 2025. In response, twenty-five states and the District of Columbia filed a legal challenge to this decision, arguing that USDA “has funds available to it that are sufficient to fund all, or at least a substantial portion, of November SNAP benefits” and that “[s]uspending SNAP benefits in these circumstances is both contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.” Today, Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the decision to halt SNAP benefits was “unlawful,” and she required the administration to explain by Monday, November 3, 2025, how it would fund aid in November. Shortly after the ruling, Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, presiding over a similar case, ordered the Trump administration to tap an emergency reserve and “distribute the contingency money timely, or as soon as possible, for the Nov. 1 payments to be made.” At the time of the Buzz’s publication, it was unclear what the administration’s next step would be.
• Government Employees. In an October 27, 2025, statement titled, “It’s Past Time to End This Shutdown,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President Everett Kelley wrote, “The path forward for Congress is clear: Reopen the government immediately under a clean continuing resolution that allows continued debate on larger issues.” AFGE represents 820,000 federal and D.C. government workers, so this statement may put some pressure on lawmakers to negotiate.
• ACA Subsidies. Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage in 2026 begins on November 1, 2025. With insurance premiums expected to increase, the lack of extended subsidies (which are what Democrats are hoping to include in a government funding package), millions of Americans could face dramatic increases to their healthcare costs.
• Military Pay. Covered members of the military are expected to receive their second October paycheck this weekend, but statements from the administration indicate that there may not be enough funds to cover the next pay period on November 15, 2025.

USCIS Ends Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization. On October 30, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published an interim final rule “to end the practice of automatically extending the validity of employment authorization documents (Forms I-766 or EADs) for aliens who have timely filed an application to renew their EAD in certain employment authorization categories.” Current rules automatically extend by 540 days the work authorization for certain foreign nationals while they wait for the government to process their timely filed renewal applications. The new rule potentially leaves these individuals without work authorization when the government takes too long to process their renewal documents. The new rule is effective for work authorization renewal documents filed on or after October 30, 2025. Matthew S. Groban, Philip K. Sholts, and Maurisa Iacono have the scoop.

Quorum Returns to the EEOC. This week, Brittany Panuccio was reportedly sworn in as a member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Panuccio, who was confirmed by the Senate on October 7, 2025, previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Appellate Division. She will join Acting Chair Andrea Lucas and Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal (who was appointed by President Biden and is the sole Democrat on the Commission) to give the EEOC a functioning quorum for essentially the first time in this administration. (A four-member Commission existed for about one week into the current administration prior to President Trump’s removal of Commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels.) T. Scott Kelly, James J. Plunkett, and Nonnie L. Shivers discuss how Panuccio’s arrival could impact the EEOC’s agenda here.

Trump Administration Seeks Quicker Deregulation. Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Sr., the acting administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has issued a memorandum to executive branch agencies, titled, “Streamlining the Review of Deregulatory Actions.” The memo builds on multiple deregulatory executive orders issued by President Trump, including Executive Order 14219 (“Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative”), encouraging agencies “to bolster, streamline, and speed” their deregulatory efforts. The memo sets a presumptive maximum twenty-eight–day OIRA review period when agencies seek to rescind standard rules and a presumptive maximum fourteen-day OIRA review period for instances in which agencies seek to rescind facially unlawful rules. Further, the memo states that while certain executive orders “call for agencies to engage in specific consultations on rules with potential impacts imposed on state and local governments,” to properly address the burdens and costs of those rules, such consultation and analysis are not necessary when eliminating rules. Pursuant to the memo, “facially unlawful regulations” should be repealed expeditiously, without going through the notice and comment process pursuant to the “good cause” exception in the Administrative Procedure Act.

CBP Finalizes Entry/Exit Photograph, Biometric Rule. On October 27, 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a final rule amending regulations “to provide that all aliens may be required to be photographed upon entry and departure from the United States.” The rule will also “permit collection of biometrics from aliens departing from airports, land ports, seaports, or any other authorized point of departure.” The regulation is styled as a final rule and will go into effect on December 26, 2025, while public comments are due on or before November 26, 2025. A notice of proposed rulemaking on the matter was issued, and comments were received at the tail end of the first Trump administration, but the rule was never finalized by the Biden administration.

It’s Owl Good … Well, unless you are a barred owl living in the Pacific Northwest. This is because the Senate this week failed to pass a resolution that would have rescinded a Biden-era rule issued by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that sets forth a plan to … *ahem* “remove” approximately 450,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest (at least the barred owls’ heads are already on a swivel). If this all seems owl-trageous, barred owls are not native to the Pacific Northwest and pose an increasing threat to the native northern spotted owl, an endangered species. FWS reasons, “Without management of barred owls, extirpation of northern spotted owls from major portions of their historic range is likely in the near future.” But only twenty-five senators give a hoot about the barred owl, as the resolution to rescind the FWS plan failed by a vote of 25 to 72.

The Buzz will be on hiatus next week but will publish again on November 14, 2025.