WorthyNews:US Energy Department Rushing To Bring Back Nuclear Energy Specialists

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US Energy Department Rushing To Bring Back Nuclear Energy Specialists

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

WASHINGTON (Worthy News) – The U.S. Energy Department is rushing to bring back nuclear energy specialists after abruptly terminating hundreds of jobs as part of a broader government overhaul, several American sources say.

The fired employees were responsible for designing and maintaining the nation’s cache of nuclear weapons at the National Nuclear Safety Administration at a time when the United States faces nuclear threats from countries ranging from North Korea and potentially Iran to Russia and China.

They were part of a larger wave of workers dismissed from the Energy Department, drawing alarm from national security experts, Worthy News learned.

Between 300 and 400 NNSA workers were terminated, reported the Bloomberg News service, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The agency’s quick reversal was announced Friday in an all-staff meeting, with officials saying the NNSA is seeking to recall the workers because they handle sensitive national security secrets.

The agency reportedly also plays a role a key role in counter-terrorism, transporting nuclear weapons around the country and responding to nuclear incidents around the world.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Recent focuses have included investigating how artificial intelligence (Al) can be used to make it potentially easier for people to make nuclear bombs, said Jill Hruby, who served as the NNSA administrator during the Biden administration.

“These people are likely never going to come back and work for the government,” Hruby warned. “We’ve had a very active program requiring an increase to our staff, so the indiscriminate layoffs of people will be really difficult for the coming years,” he told Bloomberg News.

Among the deepest cuts was to the Energy Department’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, where roughly 25 percent of its staff was eliminated, according to a breakdown of the cuts seen by Bloomberg News.

That office reportedly received some $27 billion in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law to finance carbon capture, hydrogen, and advanced nuclear projects. Among its priorities is managing an $8 billion plan to establish a network of hydrogen hubs throughout the U.S.

Other cuts included dismissing about 50 people from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, according to well-informed officials. The Office, dubbed the “green bank,” reportedly swelled to $400 billion in lending authority under previous U.S. President Joe Biden.

It funded loans to companies including Rivian Automotive Inc. and California utility PG&E Corp. for a host of clean-energy projects, Bloomberg News said.

GENERAL COUNCIL

That wasn’t all. Cuts also included roughly a dozen people from the Energy Department’s General Council office and about 20 individuals in its Grid Deployment Office, which oversees some $22 billion in federal funding for power grid projects.

Additionally, about 15 people were fired in the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains and about half a dozen from the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, which guards against threats to the power grid and other energy infrastructure

Sources said that roughly 10 percent of the Energy Department’s information technology team was eliminated elsewhere.

Yet, with hundreds of nuclear specialists being dismissed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and taking state secrets with them, security concerns were raised late Friday.

“We’ve had a very active program requiring an increase to our staff so the indiscriminate layoffs of people will be really difficult for the coming years,” Hruby noticed.

There has been confusion among bureaucrats about the Trump policy: At the Small Business Administration, some workers who were to pack their bags received a second message telling them that they weren’t being terminated and that their jobs were safe.

Yet later, they reportedly received a third message telling them they were, in fact, “out of a job.”

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