The Department of Energy has notified staffers within at least six offices — including those focused on solar, wind and hydrogen — that they may be reassigned, fired or transferred, and accused those divisions of “wasteful spending” and “regulatory overreach” under the Biden administration.
“The Energy Department can confirm it has issued Reductions in Force (RIF) notices to certain employees in the Offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP), and Minority Economic Impact,” said Ben Dietderich, a spokesperson for the agency.
“All these offices played a major role in the Biden administration’s war on American Energy,” Dietderich said. “They oversaw billions of dollars in wasteful spending and massive regulatory overreach, resulting in more expensive and less reliable energy.”
Dietderich said the offices are “being realigned to reflect the Trump administration’s commitment to advancing affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the American people and a more responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents staffers at DOE, said workers in three offices that fall under EERE’s umbrella — including the Solar Energy Technologies Office, Wind Technologies Office, and the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office — had received the notices.
But many of the offices that DOE is targeting do not write regulations and are instead focused on supporting research, and small-scale testing and demonstration of new technologies. Offices focused on solar, wind and hydrogen conduct research around driving down costs and barriers to deployment, while the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations focuses on deploying larger first-of-a-kind projects at commercial scale.
The Office of Minority Economic Impact appears to be the lone rule-crafting division. That office recently issued a final rule that rescinds policies and procedures for awarding loans to minority businesses.
Top Trump officials have repeatedly warned RIFs are imminent as the shutdown stretches on, and President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would soon cut “Democrat programs” and warned “they’re never going to come back in many cases.”
Amid the shutdown, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has moved forward with cutting billions of dollars’ worth of funding for projects, including hydrogen hubs and carbon capture.
In a legal filing Friday, the Trump administration detailed how many federal employees have received layoff notices — including approximately 187 employees at DOE.
Exactly how DOE moves forward with the cuts could have legal ramifications.
Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said the Trump administration is trying to eliminate as many federal employees as possible, including those working on programs and policies that don’t align with Trump’s priorities.
But there are detailed regulations around how and when the government can go about terminating workers, Kettl said. According to an Office of Personnel Management post online, an agency can base RIFs on a reorganization, lack of work, shortage of funds, insufficient personnel ceiling, or the exercise of certain reemployment or restoration rights.
Targeting specific individuals with RIFs or axing positions because an agency no longer wants to continue work that Congress previously approved is not permissible, he said. Congress — not federal agencies or individual workers — decides what spending is important and how to best perform those activities in the most efficient way, said Kettl.
“I haven’t seen anything that makes it permissible for the administration to RIF employees on the grounds of policy,” he said. “Policy issues are decided by Congress and law, and the president has an obligation to execute the law as the law was written.”
The Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
