The Trump administration this weekend reversed some staffing cuts at agencies that control and distribute power from massive dams in the West, after customers warned that the purge of probationary employees could jeopardize grid reliability.
News of staff reductions last week at the Department of Energy’s four power marketing administrations, or PMAs, were met swiftly with condemnation, with lawmakers and power customers warning that the moves significantly increased the risk of blackouts. PMAs sell and deliver low-cost power from federal hydroelectric dams to customers across 34 states, as well as operate transmission lines across the western United States.
For example, the Bonneville Power Administration, which operates much of the electricity grid in the Pacific Northwest and sells power from 31 federal dams, was expected to lose at least 13 percent of its staff of more than 3,000 people. That included about a quarter of the BPA’s real-time power dispatchers, according to outside sources familiar with the staffing changes.
Likewise, the Western Area Power Administration, which controls transmission and hydropower in a 15-state region in the central and western U.S., was expected to lose about 15 to 20 percent of its 1,500-person staff.
