Just weeks after mass layoffs hit the Department of Energy’s probationary employees, the remote staff of at least one office have been told they’ll have to return to office — before the agency has finalized its plans for further downsizing its workforce.
In a Monday town hall meeting for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Derek Passarelli, principal deputy under secretary for science and innovation, told workers that DOE won’t know the “right-sizing” of organizations until Congressional budgets are finalized, likely much later in the year.
“It means that you’re going to have to look at your particular situation and make a decision to report to an office that we will not have all the details on what is the right sizing of this department,” said Passarelli, who is a career DOE official and not a Trump appointee. Not yet having the details of the reduction-in-force plan, he added, “I can’t tell you that you will have a position if you come from remote to go return to an office.”
DOE has until March 13 to submit its reduction in force plan, with a Phase 2 plan due in mid-April. In other words, at this point, DOE doesn’t know exactly how it will proceed.
“I couldn’t tell you today what positions are going to be on it and which ones aren’t,” Passarelli said. “This is something that’s going to take a while to figure out and it is not something we are likely to figure out while the return to work order is being implemented.”
It is possible, he added, that DOE could offer “voluntary separation pay or voluntary early retirement,” as the Department of Education did for its departing staff. DOE does not yet have the authority to offer that option, he confirmed, but will be looking to secure it from OPM — though there are no guarantees.
For EERE specifically, employees will likely be expected to report in person to Golden, Colorado offices, or to Washington, D.C. headquarters.
However, it’s possible that employees relocating to the nation’s capital won’t necessarily have a space to go, at least in the longer-term. That return to work order comes as the Trump administration seeks to put the Energy Department building itself up for sale, as part of its broader campaign to cut costs.
As of Monday, EERE workers were not given any information about relocation expenses.
OPM chaos
Meanwhile, DOE employees are also facing uncertainty about another DOGE request that would change how their day-to-day work unfolds.
In late February, the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to federal employees at several agencies, asking them to reply with a list of five bullets, outlining what they’d accomplished the prior week.
At the Department of Energy, Secretary Chris Wright pushed back, telling employees that DOE would “provide a coordinated response to the OPM email” when and if required.
But when a second OPM email came on Friday evening — doubling-down on the initial request — Wright changed his tune. Over the weekend, he again emailed agency employees, instructing them to respond to OPM’s second request.
Those accomplishment emails, DOE workers told Latitude Media, are expected to be a weekly requirement moving forward. In Monday’s town hall, Passarelli said that artificial intelligence would be used to review their responses, one attendee said. Passarelli expects that AI may be used in part to determine which tasks are “essential,” and to help OPM build out an “org chart” for the department. (Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly working on software to automate the firing of federal workers.)
As for what to say in those weekly emails? “I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong answer,” said Passarelli
Pasarelli said he himself had responded to the email “at a very generic sort of high level,” including tasks like “prepared a briefing for senior DOE leadership.”
Another school of thought, he added, is that employees “might want to provide statutory authorization, or provide some little more detail as to the statutory work that you’re supporting.” For workers that choose to pursue that approach, Passarelli added, their responses should not include any “sensitive,” “classified,” or “encrypted” information.
But DOE doesn’t appear to have cohesion as far as how to respond. Over at the Loan Programs Office, director John Sneed emailed employees directing them not to reveal confidential information, and instructing them to keep their bullets succinct.
