Senator says EnergySec Wright will preserve WIPP, Carlsbad facilities

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) says Energy Secretary Chris Wright has promised the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facilities in New Mexico will stay open. 

“I’m pleased to announce that on my call with Secretary Wright, he promised they will stay open,” Heinrich said in a Thursday post on the X social media platform.  

Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, said he and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) along with Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), the House of Representatives member whose district includes the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, has “demanded that the Carlsbad DOE office and WIPP stay open.”

The Heinrich post did not provide further details. 

On Monday, Vasquez expressed alarm at reports the Donald Trump administration might pull the plug on the building housing DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office.

Vasquez is “deeply concerned about reports indicating that the General Services Administration (GSA) is planning to terminate the lease for the Skeen-Whitlock Building” which houses the DOE Carlsbad Field Office, he said in a press release. Vasquez said the facility is vital to the operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the nation’s only deep underground repository for defense-related transuranic waste.

The New Mexico lawmaker said in the release he has requested an “urgent meeting” with DOE and GSA officials on the matter. 

A similar statement was issued Tuesday by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.). ““Closing the Carlsbad Field Office would not only undermine the safety protocols at WIPP to protect the public and environment but also will put hundreds of federal jobs in one of the most rural areas of our state at risk,” Luján said. 

A news website called NOTUS reported Monday that GSA, at the behest of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, is looking to terminate the lease for the Skeen-Whitlock Building.

“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization,” a GSA spokesperson said via email to Exchange Monitor Thursday. “GSA is actively working with our tenant agencies to assess their space needs and fully optimize the federal footprint, and we’ll share more information on specific savings and facilities as soon as we’re able.”

According to the GSA website, the agency is reviewing hundreds of “non-core” assets although a list was not provided online yet. 

For its part, DOE did not comment by deadline. 

The 93,000 square foot Carlsbad facility includes an emergency operations center, an auditorium with sloped fixed-seating, a two-story atrium lobby, an exercise gym, and a full-service cafeteria, according to a website for real estate company Cowperwood Company.

“This facility is central to the management and disposal of defense-related nuclear waste,” Vasquez said. “Its closure could severely disrupt WIPP operations, leading to delays in waste disposal and compromising the safety protocols established to protect both the public and the environment.” 

WIPP is the nation’s only deep underground repository for defense-related transuranic waste, such as old contaminated old rags, soil, tools and components from nuclear weapons work. The salt mine accepts  both legacy transuranic waste held for decades at DOE sites as well as more newly-generated material from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. 

The Carlsbad office, which is overseeing a number of infrastructure upgrades at WIPP, has already undergone sizable reductions in force over the past month, Vasquez said.