Put your furloughed nuclear-security staff back to work, 27 lawmakers urged Energy Department leaders in a Thursday letter.
The Oct. 20 idling of nearly 80% of National Nuclear Security Administration personnel encourages foreign enemies and endangers the United States, the House members said in a letter written by Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., to Energy Secretary Chris Wright and National Nuclear Security Administrator Brandon Williams.
“These federal employees play a critical oversight role in ensuring that the work required to maintain nuclear security is carried out in accordance with long-standing policy and the law”, Titus said in the letter, who’s state is home to the Nevada National Security Site. “Undermining the agency’s workforce at such a challenging time for U.S. global leadership diminishes our credible deterrence, emboldens our international adversaries, and makes the world a more dangerous place.”
Wright announced the furloughs Monday while visiting the Nevada National Security Site, which conducts subcritical experiments and manages stockpile stewardship programs for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The Energy Secretary said the NNSA expended its funding for federal personnel this week, though the agency was “able to do some gymnastics” to help maintain funding for contractors.
“This has never happened before,” he said. “The NNSA, our umbrella organization, it’s been grouped together for 25 years. We’ve never furloughed workers in the NNSA, this should not happen, but this was a long as we could stretch the funding for the federal workers.”
In her letter, Titus asserted that while the NNSA did not deem the bulk of its workforce as excepted, its collaborators in the Defense Department have maintained “nearly every program associated with nuclear modernization, leaving the Navy and Air Force without counterparts to continue this critical work.”
She alluded to the potential that the furloughs were more a political calculation by the White House rather than the result of a budget shortfall, noting that the NNSA already faced the wrath of the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year, when more than 300 NNSA probationary employees were laid off before the agency rescinded most of the dismissals.
“This is the fourth shutdown President Trump has presided over, but the NNSA has never furloughed employees during prior shutdowns. It begs the question why this step was necessary now and why more NNSA employees were not deemed essential, given the gravity of their duties,” she said.
Titus requested that Wright and Williams provide answers to Congress regarding the legal basis for declaring nearly 1,400 NNSA employees as not excepted, as well as information on how many employees were furloughed in total, how many remain on duty and which offices were impacted by Nov. 7.
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