EnergySec Wright defends shrinking workforce at DOE, says clarity on reorg in next few weeks

Secretary of energy Chris Wright said in testimony at Congress Tuesday that there should be “clarity” on the reorganization and workforce shrinking at the Department of Energy.

“The Department of Energy is filled with a bunch of tremendous, hardworking, committed men and women trying to better the direction for our country,” Wright said at a hearing with the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Energy, where he testified on the DOE’s fiscal 2026 budget. 

Wright continued to say that in the previous Joe Biden administration, headcount grew 20% at the DOE, and costs did not drop. He added that “clearly that’s a trajectory we don’t want to go on.”

Wright said he wants to critically look at the DOE’s workforce and “bring the headcount more aligned with an appropriate budget for the times we’re in,” and insisted that he and the DOE has “done this almost entirely through voluntary measures.” Later in the hearing he said growing the headcount “was not a productive use of people or capital.”

Wright did not say when the hiring freeze at DOE would end, but said that “in the next few weeks, we will probably get more clarity on where the reorganization is going to end.”

This is the first of three hearings on the DOE’s fiscal 2026 budget wherein the presiding committee has had a skinny budget outline, an appendix and a DOE 2026 congressional justification budget in brief to work off of.