Federal lawmakers are demanding answers from President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency after reports that hundreds of probationary employees at the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) were laid off late last week. 

More than two dozen staff at DOE’s Hanford site office were let go as part of a broader purging of more than 1,800 layoffs at the department, comprising about 11% of its staffing, according to a release from U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. She also reported that a handful of staff at PNNL were laid off. 

Six hundred staff were terminated at BPA, or roughly 20% of its workforce, including linemen, engineers and power dispatchers, according to Murray and a letter to President Trump from U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. That does not include 90 job offers that were also rescinded. 

“We do not believe there is an energy emergency, but your actions certainly appear to be creating one through these cuts that actively jeopardize the stability of our energy infrastructure, right now,” the senators from Oregon wrote in their letter. 

The layoffs are occurring as the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE and led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, visits federal agencies, lawmakers say. Probationary federal employees are the newest members of the government’s civil service, having only been in their roles for one or two years, potentially longer. Those in their probationary period do not have the job protections that are given to non-probationary staff. 

In a recent appearance at the White House, Musk defended DOGE’s work. 

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what the people are going to get,” he said, as reported by The Associated Press. “That’s what democracy is all about.” 

The Washington and Oregon lawmakers, however, have criticized the layoffs, saying they are going to cripple cleanup efforts at the nation’s largest nuclear contaminated site and a power grid that supplies power to multiple states and hundreds of thousands of consumers. 

“There is nothing ‘efficient’ about indiscriminately firing thousands upon thousands of workers in red and blue states whose work is badly needed,” Murray said in a release. 

Only days before Trump’s inauguration, DOE along with Washington state officials announced a new deal on tank waste cleanup at the Hanford site. Lauded as a “realistic and achievable course” for cleaning up the Hanford site, it calls for construction of additional facilities and capacity to support waste treatment and development of new waste retrieval technologies among other provisions.  

It’s unclear how the recent staffing cuts at DOE’s Hanford site office could impact those efforts.  

Wyden and Merkley said in their letter to the president that the BPA layoffs are “reckless but also financially ludicrous” as the power provider is entirely self-funded by the utilities that pay for its power and transmission. Any cuts to the agency thus don’t cut taxpayer spending. 

“Employees on the ground are already warning that these actions will make it nearly impossible to strengthen and expand the grid as needed,” the senators wrote. “Instead, BPA will be forced into ‘damage control’ mode, struggling just to ‘keep the lights on.’ This is not speculation; it is the reality voiced by those who operate our energy infrastructure every day.” 

BPA provides more than a quarter of the energy used in the Pacific Northwest. Utilities serving the Tri-Cities and its surrounding communities receive anywhere from half to more than 80% of their power from the federal agency. 

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse only weeks ago introduced a bill that would help BPA retain workers at the federal agency by providing more flexibility in determining pay rates. Newhouse said at the time that hiring and retention challenges have contributed to a backlog of projects for the agency, potentially affecting the reliability and affordability of power. 

BPA is already struggling to meet energy demand as drier winters lead to lower streamflows behind its hydroelectric dams and as needed infrastructure projects back up. The agency recently announced that power rates may jump this fall as its cash reserves drop to low levels.