February 17, 2025 10:14 AM UTC

Colorado's Chris Wright Flunks First Big Test As Energy Secretary

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• by: Colorado Pols

CNN reports on a development late last week in the Musk Trump administration’s escalating purge of federal employees across numerous agencies, the firing of several hundred staffers at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in a move the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) quickly came to regret:

Some of the fired employees included NNSA staff who are on the ground at facilities where nuclear weapons are built. These staff oversee the contractors who build nuclear weapons, and they inspect these weapons…

Members of Congress made their concerns about the NNSA firings known to the Energy Department, a Hill staffer told CNN. A person with knowledge of the matter told CNN that senators visited Energy Sec. Chris Wright to express concern about the NNSA cuts.

“Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile,” one source said. [Pols emphasis] “The nuclear deterrent is the backbone of American security and stability – period. For there to be any even very small holes poked even in the maintenance of that deterrent should be extremely frightening to people.”

NBC News reports that the Department of Energy under newly-confirmed Coloradan frackvangelist Secretary Chris Wright is frantically reaching out to these employees to let them know that the life-altering email they got informing them of their termination was in error, billionaires after all make oopsies–but there’s another problem:

National Nuclear Security Administration officials on Friday attempted to notify some employees who had been let go the day before that they are now due to be reinstated — but they struggled to find them because they didn’t have their new contact information…

The individuals the letter refers to had been fired on Thursday and lost access to their federal government email accounts. NNSA, which is within the Department of Energy and oversees the nation’s nuclear stockpile, cannot reach these employees directly and is now asking recipients of the email, “Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people’s personal contact emails.”

In response to the outcry over the firing of hundreds of workers vital to the nation’s nuclear arms and energy programs, the White House claimed that only a small number of “clerical” employees had been affected. AP reports that is not the reality-based version of events:

The accounts from the three officials contradict an official statement from the Department of Energy, which said fewer than 50 National Nuclear Security Administration staffers were let go, calling them “probationary employees” who “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

But that wasn’t the case. The firings prompted one NNSA senior staffer to post a warning and call to action.

“This is a pivotal moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we are content with undermining the very systems that secure our nation’s future,” deputy division director Rob Plonski posted to LinkedIn. “Cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.”

Sold to the nation during the election as an advisory body that would make proposals to Congress, DOGE has instead morphed into an administrative buzzsaw, directly making sweeping and legally questionable changes following Elon Musk’s philosophy of “cut until it breaks” and then fixing the damage caused by cutting too far. While that mentality may work with tech startups, the effect on the federal government is proving disastrous as millions of dollars in commitments go unfunded and federal workers lose their jobs by the thousands.

With DOGE apparently bent on indiscriminate cuts and firings that could do lasting damage to core functions of government like national security, responsibility then must fall to the Cabinet officials who know (or at least should know) what in their respective departments needs to be protected from purge. It appears that Chris Wright either didn’t know that DOGE was firing NNSA workers in his charge or, like DOGE, didn’t realize these were workers who should not be purged for some of the most basic national security reasons that exist. Neither of these are auspicious for the new Energy Secretary.

As it turns out, there’s more to the Department of Energy than “drill baby drill!” Secretary Chris Wright, in the job as a fossil fuel cheerleader, just found that out the DOGE way.