The Department of Energy clarified its number of departing employees Friday after Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at a House appropriations hearing that fewer than 1,000 people have left DOE since Trump’s inauguration.
In a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News, DOE said the number does not include employees who have chosen to leave voluntarily through its deferred resignation program, as those staffers “are still employed by the department.” That suggests that eventual departures from DOE, which has about 16,000 employees, could be much greater once voluntary resignations and future staff cuts are included.
According to two people familiar with internal operations, more than 3,500 employees opted to leave DOE voluntarily, although those resignations are subject to approval. DOE has not yet provided a final tally of employees who took the deferred resignation offer.
The 1,000 figure “does not include staff who have opted into the DRP. … [T]he secretary was asked [at the hearing] how many people have left the department, and that number is fewer than 1,000. All enrollment requests to the DRP are subject to approval, and certain public safety, national security, law enforcement, or other essential employees may not be approved for participation,” the DOE statement said.
