GAO: DOE Nuclear Cleanup Office Lost One-Third of Staff Since FY2023, Now Faces 45% Vacancy Rate

The Energy Department office in charge of cleaning up the federal government’s vast nuclear waste legacy has lost a third of its federal workforce since fiscal 2023 and is now operating with a roughly 45% vacancy rate, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.

The staffing deterioration at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management matters well beyond head counts. The office oversees the cleanup of radioactive waste and contamination left by decades of nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored nuclear research. In a July 2024 report, GAO said workforce shortages had already contributed to schedule delays, cost overruns and workplace accidents across that mission. In its new report, GAO said EM “has become further understaffed since GAO reported on EM’s workforce challenges in July 2024.”

GAO found EM’s total federal staff fell 33%, from 1,272 employees in fiscal 2023 to 856 at the end of fiscal 2025. Using EM’s own previously identified staffing need of 1,515 full-time employees, GAO calculated that the office ended fiscal 2025 with 689 vacancies, or about 45%. Attrition accelerated last year: EM had 409 separations in fiscal 2025, and 312 of them, or 76%, came through the Deferred Resignation Program, a governmentwide initiative launched in early 2025 that allowed eligible federal employees to resign on a deferred timetable while remaining on paid administrative leave for a period. Of the 409 departures, 180 were in mission-critical occupations.

The deepest shortages are in the engineering and science jobs central to overseeing radioactive waste cleanup. GAO said EM had just 19 nuclear engineers onboard at the end of fiscal 2025, with 23 vacancies, for a 55% vacancy rate. In general engineering, EM had 174 employees and 179 vacancies, a 51% vacancy rate. In general physical science, it had 117 employees and 51 vacancies, a 30% vacancy rate.

The office is also facing a retirement wave. GAO said 35% of EM’s remaining staff, or 299 employees, will be eligible to retire by 2030. Among mission-critical occupations, 30% of the remaining workforce will be retirement-eligible by then, raising the prospect that shortages could deepen even if hiring improves.

The report comes as EM manages one of the federal government’s largest long-term liabilities. GAO cited DOE’s fiscal 2025 Agency Financial Report showing about $539 billion in environmental and disposal liabilities, the majority of the department’s total liabilities. The office is responsible for contaminated buildings, soil and groundwater across a nationwide cleanup complex.

EM officials told GAO the office plans to hire about 174 new staff in fiscal 2026 based on its budget. GAO also said officials were reassessing staffing needs as of March 2026 and considering reorganization. But the watchdog said EM did not plan to change work scopes to match possible workforce changes, even as staffing losses mounted.

The new report, titled “Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE Shortages in Mission-Critical Positions Have Continued to Increase,” follows up on 10 workforce-management recommendations GAO made in 2024. “DOE agreed with all of the [10] recommendations, which remained open as of March 2026,” the report said. DOE did not provide a substantive rebuttal to the updated staffing figures in the report; GAO said the department offered technical comments on a draft.