Hundreds of workers guarding the nation’s nuclear weapons are being furloughed as the government shutdown drags on.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency in charge of safeguarding and transporting nuclear weapons, is being gutted, leaving only a fraction of its workforce on the job.
About 1,400 employees will be furloughed starting on Monday, leaving fewer than 400 people to oversee and protect the nuclear stockpile, the Department of Energy told CNN.
The shutdown has stretched into a fourth week as Republicans and Democrats fail to find a compromise, notably on demands to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“Since its creation in 2000, NNSA has never before furloughed federal workers during funding lapses,” Energy Department spokesperson Ben Dietderich said in a statement. “We are left with no choice this time. We’ve extended funding as long as we could.”
The NNSA’s Office of Secure Transportation—which manages the movement of nuclear weapons across the U.S.—will keep running through Oct. 27. But the broader shutdown will hit critical facilities like the Pantex Plant in Texas and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, where weapons are assembled and dismantled. Those sites will enter “safe shutdown mode,” sources told CNN, forcing day-to-day oversight and modernization work to a standstill.
“Contractors will continue doing very minimal work until they themselves run out of money,” one NNSA source told the network. “But the day-to-day rhythm of federal oversight… will grind to a halt because the people responsible for oversight will be furloughed.”
The NNSA furloughs are among the first major shutdown-related disruptions to national-security operations. The Department of Homeland Security has laid off approximately 176 employees, most of whom reportedly come from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
DHS is also reassigning CISA employees to other agencies, like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Cyber Security Drive. Bloomberg reports that the agency has lost one-third of its workforce during the second Trump administration.
Inside the NNSA, employees say halting weapons work mid-operation brings unique risks. “To stop in the middle of disassembling or building a nuclear weapon, there are several steps you must take to ensure everything is safe enough to leave and lock up,” a source told CNN. “And then when you come back, you have to do all of that in reverse to restart. It takes time—it’s not like flipping a light switch.”
For now, security personnel guarding the nation’s nuclear materials will remain in place. But modernization efforts—part of the Pentagon’s push to update America’s Cold War–era arsenal—are at risk of significant delays.
“The nuclear stockpile today is reliable,” another agency source said. “But if we can’t continue modernization, refurbishing, doing surveillance, then it’s the reliability of the stockpile that’s affected—and it’s going to take time to play catch-up.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to address the shutdown’s impact on Monday during a visit to the Nevada National Security Site.
In its plan for a shutdown, the Energy Department said that the agency would maintain a small workforce to support “functions related to the safety of human life or the protection of property, or would remain working as necessary to discharge the President’s constitutional duties and powers.”
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, warned about the dangers of the furloughs. “These are not employees that you want to go home. They’re managing and handling a very important strategic asset for us. They need to be at work and being paid,” he said.
The agency’s core mission, according to its website, is to “ensure the United States maintains a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear stockpile through the application of unparalleled science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing.”
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