Lapses in government appropriations have a way of exposing administrative priorities. And while the Trump administrations energy creed is no secret, the ongoing partial government shutdown the longest in the history of the United States is proof that for President Donald Trump and his team, few things take precedence over fossil fuels.

As an estimated 800,000 federal workers went without paychecks, leaving many financially insecure as national parks around the country fell into disarray. Despite this, the Trump administration has still found a way to plow ahead with its energy dominance agenda.

With a skeleton staff, the Interior Department continues working to expand oil and gas development in the Alaskan Arctic. The agencys Bureau of Land Management is processing fossil fuel drilling applications and permits . And last week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management amended its shutdown contingency plan to bring back dozens of furloughed employees, some on an on-call basis, to continue work on offshore drilling activities. Those efforts, backed by carryover funds from 2018, included preparing for an upcoming lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, processing Atlantic seismic exploration permits and developing a new five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program .

The failure to hold upcoming Gulf lease sales would have a negative impact to the Treasury and negatively impact investment in the U.S. Offshore Gulf of Mexico, BOEM wrote in its updated plan. And the agency must press ahead with its revised offshore leasing plan to comply with the Administrations America First energy strategy, it said.

We have not seen any major effects of the shutdown on our industry, Mike Sommers, president of oil and gas trade group American Petroleum Institute, told reporters last week, according to Natural Gas Intelligence.