Washington DC – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement in response to reports that the Trump administration began firing Washington state workers at the Hanford site and the Bonneville Power Administration. The Trump administration has ordered mass firings of federal workers who are on their “probationary” period—meaning workers who were hired or promoted within the past 1-2 years.
“Yesterday, the Trump administration began indiscriminately laying off Hanford workers in Washington state, as well as hundreds of workers at the Bonneville Power Administration who deliver clean and reliable energy to families across the Pacific Northwest.
“At Hanford, in addition to the deferred resignations, over a dozen people were laid off,including safety engineers, environmental scientists, people who monitor and respond to urgent safety issues, folks who make sure Hanford workers’ rights are protected, and others who are absolutely critical to the Hanford cleanup mission and the safety of the workers there. These reckless firings will slow down critical cleanup work and make workers less safe—trying to run Hanford with a skeleton crew is a recipe for disaster that could have irreversible impacts. An adequate federal workforce is essential for oversight of the work executed by nearly 12,000 contractor workers at the Hanford site. These layoffs will hurt companies, workers, and their families across Eastern Washington.
“Adding insult to injury, the Trump administration has also needlessly laid off a handful of employees at PNNL—workers who power cutting-edge research and groundbreaking innovations on everything from energy storage to nuclear security.
“And I have heard the Bonneville Power Administration will be losing more than 600 highly-skilled workers across the Northwest,this includes everyone from electricians and engineers, to dispatchers, to lineworkers, to cybersecurity experts, and so many others. These are literally the people who help keep the lights on,and now they’re being fired on a whim because Trump and Elon Musk don’t have a clue about what they do and why it’s important, and don’t care to learn. They don’t seem to even understand that these are positions funded by ratepayers—by all of us in the Northwest—not from federal funding.
“The callousness of this administration is breathtaking,these mass layoffs pose a serious threat to our energy security and the health and safety of people across our state, not to mention the livelihoods of so many hardworking families who have done nothing wrong and whose work is sorely needed. These firings will raise energy costs for Washington ratepayers and jeopardize the reliability of the grid in the Northwest—a genuinely life-or-death concern for millions. I will keep doing everything I can to raise the voices of the people harmed by this administration’s indefensible policies and fight back.”
Senator Murray has worked tirelessly to support Hanford workers and ensure the federal government lives up to its cleanup obligations at Hanford throughout her time in Congress—beating back efforts by multiple administrations to underfund Hanford cleanup. Murray secured a record $3.035 billion for the Hanford cleanup—$191.4 million above the fiscal year 2023 funding level in the fiscal year 2024 government funding package she negotiated and passed through Congress as Appropriations Chair, which was signed into law on March 9th. In December 2023, Murray’s Ley de imparcialidad en las pruebas de berilio, to help Hanford workers suffering from toxic beryllium exposure, was signed into law by President Biden.
El senador Murray ha sido un seguidor of the BPA, and the low-cost energy it provides to millions across the Pacific Northwest, and she has been vocal in her opposition to attempts to privatize the organization. During the first Trump administration, Senator Murray also exitosamente trabajó against Trump’s repeated attempts to privatize BPA and sell the BPA power grid.
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