It’s not uncommon for people, even on Capitol Hill, to be confused about what the Department of Energy does. It has nothing to do with oil drilling, for example. Rather, the agency, among other thing, oversees the United States’ nuclear weapons program and nuclear security policies.
With this in mind, it’s hard to not to feel some anxiety about the recent moves from Donald Trump and the president’s team related to the agency.
There were some reports a couple of weeks ago, for example, about Elon Musk’s quasi-governmental DOGE and its representatives gaining access to sensitive information at the Department of Energy. Soon after, there were related accounts about counterintelligence officials at the agency issuing internal warnings about DODE personnel and their access to secure DOE facilities.
It was against this backdrop that the Trump administration apparently thought it’d be a good idea to fire a sizable group of Department of Energy workers — including some who worked at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
And then, as NBC News reported, it apparently occurred to Team Trump that this probably wasn’t a good idea.
National Nuclear Security Administration officials on Friday attempted to notify some employees who had been let go the day before that they are now due to be reinstated — but they struggled to find them because they didn’t have their new contact information. In an email sent to employees at NNSA and obtained by NBC News, officials wrote, “The termination letters for some NNSA probationary employees are being rescinded, but we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel.”
Evidently, when the Trump administration carelessly fired these employees, they were no longer able to access their DOE email accounts, and National Nuclear Security Administration didn’t have their personal email accounts on file.
As such, the department wanted to bring these ousted officials back, but it didn’t know how best to alert the fired workers that their services — which include designing, building and overseeing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile — are still needed.
As for why they were fired in the first place, CNN reported that Trump administration officials did not “realize” that these employees oversee the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, told the Associated Press, “The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for.”
How reassuring.
The utterly shambolic developments did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill. While Republicans have not yet expressed any public concerns, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, as well as Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, issued a joint statement, demanding an immediate briefing from Secretary Chris Wright.
“We are alarmed about the thousands of probationary employee firings across the Department of Energy. The efforts to fire employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration are shocking,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote. “To order the firing of employees without knowing that NNSA is responsible for maintaining a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile while also preventing, countering, and responding to a terrorist or other adversary with a nuclear or radiological device is utterly callous and dangerous.”
They added, “We find it deeply troubling that the Department … has sent a strong message that it does not view the oversight and safety of legacy nuclear weapons cleanup sites as a national security priority.”
Murray and Kaptur concluded, “Until such time as we are briefed on these developments, we will not know the damage to our country and the world as a result of these haphazard and thoughtless firings. We strongly suggest your administration pay far closer attention to the work carried out by the federal employees subject to these seemingly indiscriminate and arbitrary layoffs.”
As best as I can tell, Wright has not yet responded. Watch this space.
Read More: Team Trump struggles to rehire fired nuclear safety workers