Budget request shows smaller 2026 workforce for DOE cleanup office

In addition to trimming its budget, the Department of Energy’s cleanup program for Cold War and Manhattan Project sites could have roughly a quarter fewer federal employees in fiscal 2026 than it did two years earlier.

That is one of the takeaways from the White House Office of Management and Budget’s 1,220-page technical supplement to its budget request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The Donald Trump administration Friday rolled more details about its so-called “skinny” budget for fiscal 2026.

The skinny budget was released May 2. 

Based on the tables, it appears the total Environmental Management (EM) budget under the request would be roughly $8.2 billion, down from $8.5 billion in fiscal 2024 and 2025.

Likewise, EM could employ roughly 1,000 people in fiscal 2026, down from an estimated 1,225 in 2025 and 1,278 in 2024, according to the employment summary section of the document.

Defense Environmental Cleanup, by far the largest tranche of money in the DOE Office of Environmental Management, would be funded at $7.23 billion under the administration’s request. That figure is down from roughly $7.6 billion in each of the previous two fiscal years.

Again in the new cycle, Defense Environmental Cleanup would transfer a hefty sum, this time $278 million, to help shore up the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund (UED&D). The request for UED&D in fiscal 2026 is $814 million, down from $855 million in fiscal 2025 and $846 million in fiscal 2024. 

The requested funds for Non-Defense Environmental Cleanup, which includes remediation of energy research sites, would be $379 million, down from $477 million in fiscal 2025, but up from $353 million in fiscal 2024.

DOE’s largest nuclear cleanup project, the Hanford Site in Washington state, is listed with a budget request of $2.9 billion, down from $2.97 billion in fiscal 2024.

“The president’s proposed budget for Hanford is utterly unacceptable and will be going nowhere as far as I am concerned,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a member of Senate Appropriations, said in a press release.