Federal Communications Commission building in Washington, D.C. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

The Federal Communications Commission will cease most of its operations by midday Thursday if the government shutdown does not end first, the FCC said in a statement published to its website on New Year's Eve.

“In the event of a continued partial lapse in federal government funding, the Federal Communications Commission will suspend most operations in the middle of the day on Thursday, January 3. At that time, employees will have up to four hours to complete an orderly shutdown of operations,” the FCC said in a statement.

In a document detailing shutdown instructions, the FCC said that “all FCC activities will cease other than those immediately necessary for the protection of life or property.”

According to a public notice released Wednesday, the Network Outage Reporting System, the Disaster Information Reporting System, the Public Safety Support Center, the Licensing Management System, the Consolidated Database System, the Electronic Comment Filing System, the Universal Licensing System, the Electronic Document Management System, the Auctions Public Reporting System, the Auction Application System, the Auction Bidding System, the Daily Digest and the Commission Online Registration System (CORES) will remain available.

“Consumer complaint and inquiry phone lines cannot be answered; consumer protection and local competition enforcement must cease; licensing services, including broadcast, wireless, and wireline, must cease; management of radio spectrum and the creation of new opportunities for competitive technologies and services for the American public must be suspended; and equipment authorizations, including those bringing new electronic devices to American consumers cannot be provided,” according to its shutdown document.

Before the shutdown is activated, employees will be asked to report to work to go through the process of shutting the agency down. Of the 1,442 workers employed by the FCC, 245 will be retained during the course of the shutdown. They include the chairman and three commissioners. Thirteen employees will be retained to “protect life and property.” There will also be employees in place to make sure the spectrum auction continues uninterrupted. The 5G spectrum auction began in November, according to a report by The Verge.

Furloughed employees may be called on to work on an as-needed basis, the FCC said.

The partial government shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 22 when President Donald Trump decided against signing a stopgap funding measure. According to The Washington Post, House Democrats intend to pass legislation to end the shutdown as soon as they take control of Congress on Thursday afternoon, but it isn't known how Trump will respond. The current shutdown is already the longest since a partial federal government shutdown in 2013, according to the newspaper.

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