WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal agency tasked with overseeing the U.S. nuclear stockpile has begun furloughing employees as part of an ongoing policy. federal government shutdownEnergy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday.
Wright, who visited Nevada, said the National Nuclear Security Administration is furloughing 1,400 federal employees as part of the shutdown. Starts from October 1st. Nearly 400 federal employees and thousands of NNSA contractors will continue working, the Department of Energy said. NNSA, a semi-autonomous arm of the Department of Energy, also works to secure nuclear materials around the world.
“Today is a tough day,” Wright said in Las Vegas before a scheduled visit to the Nevada National Security Facility in Mercury, Nevada. “We are working hard to protect everyone’s jobs and keep our national stockpile safe.”
Wright said the furloughs do not pose an immediate threat to national security, adding: “We have emergency personnel and our current nuclear stockpile is secure.”
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration Fired hundreds of NNSA employees before reversing course earlier this year amid criticism that the action could threaten national security. Similar criticism surfaced on Monday after Wright’s announcement.
Wright said the disruption would impact workers and their families and delay testing of commercial reactors, including some small modular reactors that the Trump administration is pushing as a cheaper alternative to expensive nuclear power plants that can take years or even decades to bring online.
“These are very important jobs,” Wright said, urging Congressional leaders to reopen the government as soon as possible.
“It is dangerously unacceptable for the Trump administration to insist that certain nuclear security programs must be suspended because of the ongoing government shutdown,” said Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
“There is no good reason to relax security and oversight when it comes to nuclear stockpiles,” Markey said.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said lawmakers were informed about the pending furloughs late last week.
“These are not employees who want to go home. They manage and handle strategic assets that are very important to our company,” he said at a press conference Friday. They need to work and get paid. ”
At the heart of the government shutdown is the looming increase in the cost of health insurance for millions of people. The Democratic Party is Seek to negotiate expiring medical subsidies Republicans, meanwhile, have said they won’t discuss this or any other policy until the government reopens.
The February layoffs initially included NNSA employees, but Massive purge of federal employees It is led by then-President Trump advisor Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
One of the hardest hit offices at the time was the Pantex factory near Amarillo, Texas. These employees are working on reassembling the warhead. the most delicate job Across the entire nuclear weapons enterprise, with clearance at the highest levels.
The employees received a 30-day furlough notice dated Sunday, with an expiration date of Nov. 18. Employees who were not involved in the performance of essential duties related to the safety of life or protection of property, or who were not engaged in an orderly suspension of operations, were placed on unpaid furlough.
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Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, and Ty O’Neal in Las Vegas contributed to this article.
