Nearly half the seats are empty at the Energy Department office charged with nuclear waste cleanup after the Trump administration offered multiple rounds of deferred resignation, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.
The vacancy rate of around 45 percent at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management has worsened since fiscal 2023, the GAO said in its report, directed to House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). The steady flow of departures is hammering an office whose workforce was already below its recommended levels, GAO said.
As of the end of fiscal 2025, EM had 856 federal staffers, nearly 700 short of the more than 1,500 full-time employees that the office had identified it needed back in fiscal 2023. Of the 409 staffers that left EM in fiscal 2025, 312 — or 76 percent — took buyouts offered by the Trump administration last year.
“This understaffing includes shortages in mission-critical occupations that are integral to carrying out EM’s mission, which includes addressing contaminated buildings, soil, and groundwater, and treating radioactive waste,” GAO said in its report.
