Staffing vacancies in key positions at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) have grown more acute, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report made public Tuesday.
The office in charge of nuclear cleanup at Cold War and Manhattan Project sites “has become further understaffed since GAO reported on EM’s workforce challenges in July 2024,” GAO said.
In July 2024, GAO reported that “EM’s levels of understaffing and workforce management challenges had caused schedule delays, cost overruns, and workplace accidents.”
Total staff has decreased by 33% from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2025, going from a headcount of 1,272 to 856, GAO said. This created an overall vacancy rate of 45% by the end of fiscal 2025, “based on a staffing need of 1,515,” GAO said in the report.
There are 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.
The White House’s Deferred Resignation Program in 2025 had a big impact on Environmental Management. Of the 409 staffers who left the cleanup office in fiscal 2025, 76% or 312 left via the Deferred Resignation Program. About half of the departures, 180, “were in mission-critical occupations,” GAO said.
“EM’s remaining workforce is aging,” GAO said. At the end of fiscal 2025, 35% of the Environmental Management staff and 30% of those in mission-critical jobs would be eligible for retirement by 2030, GAO said.
“EM plans to hire about 174 new staff in FY 2026, based on its FY 2026 budget, to help offset staffing gaps,” GAO said.
But experience at the Hanford Site in Washington state suggests new hires have a hard time overcoming the loss of institutional knowledge when old hands leave, GAO said.
“For example, to become fully trained and qualified to oversee certain capital asset projects at Hanford, federal project directors need to go through an extensive qualification process that can take up to 10 years,” GAO said in the report. “Officials at Hanford said that an employee who has been there for 2 to 5 years can still be considered a “new hire” because of the technicality of the role and the amount the employee has to learn.”
“As of March 2026, officials said EM is reassessing staffing needs and did not plan to change work scopes to match any potential changes in workforce numbers while considering reorganization,” GAO said.
In March, the head of EM, Tim Walsh, told the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix that EM would soon be hiring 90 to 100 new people in connection with a planned reorganization.
At the end of fiscal 2025, the Hanford Site in Washington state had the largest concentration of EM staff with 209; followed by 169 at Washington, D.C. headquarters and 147 at the Cincinnati-based EM Consolidated Business Center and its seven managed sites.