More time in the office, fewer RFPs, not many big changes to EM seen under Trump 2

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” is a line from “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” a hit song by British rock band, The Who from 1971 —but it also could describe today’s political climate.

The Department of Energy and the rest of the U.S. government, is preparing for the second presidential term of Republican Donald Trump, whose political comeback culminated with his November election win over Vice President Kamala Harris. Four years ago, Trump left after one term, losing the White House to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump’s return is clearly top of mind with about a half-dozen industry and labor officials who spoke with Exchange Monitor about what to expect from DOE and its $8-billion-dollar Office of Environmental Management in 2025.

EM leadership, funding could remain stable

All the sources doubt DOE’s nuclear cleanup office ranks high on Trump’s second-term priorities and they say that’s fine.

A conservative policy document, Project 2025, published in 2023 by Trump supporters said some states and DOE contractors have viewed the Environmental Management office as a jobs program. The document said DOE could do more to speed cleanup at the Hanford Site in Washington state and other federal nuclear properties.

Nobody who spoke to the Monitor for this story expected deep cuts in Environmental Management’s multi-billion-dollar budget or anticipates Trump 2.0 to be in any hurry to replace acting cleanup boss Candice Robertson with a political appointee.

So far there is only modest chatter on weapons complex political appointments by the new administration as many feds and contractors are only just “turning their laptops back on” following the holidays, one source said.

President-elect Trump’s choice for secretary of energy, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, is scheduled for a confirmation hearing next week. No announcement has been made about a deputy secretary yet. Some sources said a couple of names from the first Trump term have already been mentioned: James Danly, a former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, as well as Paul Dabbar, a former undersecretary of science at DOE during Trump’s first term.

There is concern voiced by some about a new non-governmental entity called the Department of Government Efficiency that will target government waste and be co-piloted by Elon Musk. Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the X social media platform, is a major Trump donor and has dubbed himself Trump’s “first buddy.”

During an earnings call last month, the CEO of government contractor Amentum, which has merged with Jacob’s government business, downplayed the chances of national security programs being targeted for budget cuts.

The feeling is that DOE offices dealing with renewable energy, energy efficiency, diversity and climate change are far more likely to have funding cuts, people told the Monitor this week.

Some sources said to watch what happens with DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy program after the Biden administration leaves. The program is tapping thousands of acres of underused land at nuclear-weapon sites for carbon-free electric generation. DOE has selected companies to negotiate lease agreements at several nuclear sites. A couple of sources said the Trump team might redirect this effort toward greater emphasis on small nuclear reactors at locations like the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Workforce issues could still loom large as DOE and Environmental Management continue efforts to replace waves of retirees with new staff. 

At the end of fiscal 2023, there were 263 vacant positions at the cleanup office and 44% of its staff will be eligible for retirement by 2030, the Government Accountability Office said in a July report.  The report said Environmental Management lacks a national policy on remote work.

The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has targeted remote work in an effort to get more employees back into the office.  An industry source said most DOE contractors got employees back to the jobsite after the COVID-19 pandemic.

At some sites with unionized labor, post-COVID inflation has affected bargaining. Herman Potter, retiring United Steelworkers Local 689 president at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, said price increases that followed the pandemic pushed union labor to seek higher cost-of-living wage increases.

On the business side, 2024 was “a banner year” for procurement in the weapons complex, one industry source said, adding there will be fewer big solicitations in 2025.

The biggest prize of 2024, which was laboriously litigated before a final award, was a new decade-long liquid waste contract at the Hanford Site potentially worth up to $45-billion. Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is expected to start turning some low-level radioactive waste into glass form by August.

Elsewhere, Environmental Management awarded a new operations contract, including depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites. That contract has been protested. DOE has also awarded a new cleanup contract at the West Valley Demonstration site in New York state.

By contrast, in fiscal year 2025, expected awards include the relatively smaller Portsmouth Infrastructure Site Services contract.