SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Concerns about nuclear materials are one of the newest issues cropping up as a result of massive de-staffing in the federal government. As employees leave, experts warn that knowledge about how to safely handle these materials could be disappearing.
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Scott Roecker, vice president of the nuclear materials security program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative nonprofit organization, joined KCBS Radio this week to discuss the concerns. He said that more than 130 of around 2,000 employees in the nuclear field have accepted an opportunity to leave the government and get paid through the end of the year.
Audacy reported on this offer from President Donald Trump’s administration in February, when an estimated 20,000 had already accepted the offer – around 1% of the entire federal workforce. Trump’s administration has also been conducting mass layoffs, under the guidance of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by multi-billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk. Last week, USA Today reported that to more than 2 million federal workers are expected to be let go over the next few months.
Some of the efforts to terminate workers have been met with legal challenges. For example, Audacy reported Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ruled Tuesday that the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development likely violated the Constitution and blocked DOGE from further cuts to the agency. Audacy also reported last week on one expert who is worried that DOGE’s moves are undermining the Constitution.
However, the nuclear concerns regarding workers who have already agreed to quit remain.
“These are, for the most part, people who are in leadership positions with several decades of experience on very important and unique, you know, missions for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA),” Roecker explained. He confirmed that there are no plans to replace the employees, who worked at offices across the nation.
When asked what his biggest fear about the situation is, Roecker said this: “One of the biggest issues that... organization is facing is maintaining the knowledge necessary to, you know, safely and securely handle our nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. There’s a very, like, deliberate process that’s been in place for a number of years to transfer this knowledge to the next generation. And some of these efforts are looking to undermine that, whether they realize it or not.”
This exodus comes at a time when a major modernization project is underway regarding nuclear weapons held by the U.S., Roecker added. It is in part due to changing risks regarding Russia and China and the nuclear weapons systems held by those countries.
According to a recent article from The New York Times, the NNSA is at “the busiest it has been since the Cold War,” and that it manages 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads as well as nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles.
“So, you actually saw an increase in the number of employees at NNSA to approximately 200 or 2,000 people total,” Roecker said. “And… this deferred retirement plan that’s gone forward has basically reduced all the gains that we’ve made over the last four or five years.”
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