WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation\u2019s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that DOGE\u2019s blind cost cutting will put communities at risk.
\nThree US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were abruptly laid off late Thursday, with some losing access to email before they\u2019d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they were locked out. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
\nOne of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, which saw about 30 percent of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance.
\nThe hundreds let go at NNSA were part of a DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees.
\n\u201cThe DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,\u201d said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, referencing Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency team. \u201cThey don\u2019t seem to realize that it\u2019s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.\u201d
\nBy late Friday night, the agency\u2019s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the firings for all but 28 of those hundreds of fired staff members.
\n\u201cThis letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025 has been rescinded, effective immediately,\u201d said the memo, which was obtained by the AP.
\nThe accounts from the three officials contradict an official statement from the Department of Energy, which said fewer than 50 National Nuclear Security Administration staffers were let go, calling them \u201cprobationary employees\u201d who \u201cheld primarily administrative and clerical roles.\u201d
\nBut that wasn\u2019t the case. The firings prompted one NNSA senior staffer to post a warning and call to action.
\n\u201cThis is a pivotal moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we are content with undermining the very systems that secure our nation\u2019s future,\u201d deputy division director Rob Plonski posted to LinkedIn. \u201cCutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.\u201d
\nWhile some of the Energy Department employees who were fired dealt with energy efficiency and the effects of climate change, issues not seen as priorities by the Trump administration, many others dealt with nuclear issues, even if they didn\u2019t directly work on weapons programs. This included managing massive radioactive waste sites and ensuring the material there doesn\u2019t further contaminate nearby communities.
\nThat incudes the Savannah River National Laboratory in Jackson, South Carolina; the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state, where workers secure 177 high-level waste tanks from the site\u2019s previous work producing plutonium for the atomic bomb; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a Superfund contamination site where much of the early work on the Manhattan Project was done, among others.
\nUS Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and US Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, both Democrats, called the firings last week \u201cutterly callous and dangerous.\u201d
\nThe NNSA staff who had been reinstated could not all be reached after they were fired, and some were reconsidering whether to return to work, given the uncertainty created by DOGE.
\nMany federal employees who had worked on the nation\u2019s nuclear programs had spent their entire careers there, and there was a wave of retirements in recent years that cost the agency years of institutional knowledge.
\nBut it\u2019s now in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort \u2014 including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads. In response, the labs have aggressively hired over the past few years: In 2023, 60 percent of the workforce had been there five years or less.
\nEdwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the firings could disrupt the day-to-day workings of the agency and create a sense of instability over the nuclear program both at home and abroad.
\n\u201cI think the signal to US adversaries is pretty clear: throw a monkey wrench in the whole national security apparatus and cause disarray,\u201d he said. \u201cThat can only benefit the adversaries of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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