Nuclear waste oversight at risk as staffing vacancies mount, watchdog warns

Nearly half of the positions in the federal government’s office responsible for handling and cleaning up nuclear waste are currently vacant, according to a new audit, after the Trump administration incentivized a wave of departures at the agency. 

The Energy Department’s Environmental Management office lost around one-third of its employees in fiscal 2025, the Government Accountability Office found in a new report, most of whom left as part of the “deferred resignation program” that allowed employees to sit on paid leave for several months before exiting government. It already maintained a vacancy rate of 20% in 2023, GAO said. About half of the nuclear waste office’s unfilled positions were in mission-critical roles. 

In a separate report in 2024, GAO found Environmental Management faced challenges in cleaning up nuclear waste due to understaffing, as it forced schedule delays, cost overruns and workplace accidents. At its 15 clean up sites, the Energy office is tasked with deactivating contaminated buildings, remediating contaminated soil and operating facilities that treat millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste. 

At its location in the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the office has a vacancy rate of 62%. The rate was among the lowest of any EM facility at its headquarters, where it was still 39%. Over the last 10 years, the office’s low point in staffing was in 2024 at 1,279, or more than 30% than its current level. 

Each of EM’s six mission-critical occupation groups experienced a decrease, including nuclear engineering, general engineering and general physical science. Positions for facilities representatives, who provide the office’s “on-site presence for safety and compliance purposes” including worker health, are 44% vacant. All of the positions at the Carlsbad Field Office are vacant, while Los Alamos has just one remaining. 

“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. 

Energy officials told GAO the nuclear clean up office is currently reorganizing and reassessing its staffing needs. It is planning to hire 174 workers in fiscal 2026, they said, and it is not planning any changes to its responsibilities. Such hiring would still leave the office with 19% fewer employees than it had when President Trump took office last year, as well as with a 33% vacancy rate in the office according to its own previously assessed needs. 

The officials suggested EM may eliminate some vacant positions and that could reduce the vacancy rate, GAO said. Some of the planned hiring, however, will come from transfers within Energy, potentially creating more vacancies elsewhere. The officials added that it will take at least a year to train many of the new hires. 

Employees within the office told GAO the vacancies are taking a toll. 

“According to EM officials, leaving these positions vacant means there are fewer people to manage the workload, resulting in employees potentially burning out with heavy workloads, which gives them concern over the safety of operations,” GAO said. 

The officials added that the office “was not hiring any entry-level people and was losing knowledge at a rapid rate as employees continue to retire and resign.”