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Will Wright be right?

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By scooby

 https://fedscoop.com/energy-secretary-signals-reversal-of-some-cuts-to-national-labs/


Multiple lawmakers on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee shared their concerns with Wright during a DOE budget hearing about the proposed $2.75 billion cut to the national labs in the White House’s fiscal 2026 proposal, saying it undercuts his oft-stated tech priorities.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., ranking member of the panel, said engineers at the Sandia National Laboratories have told him the proposed cuts will “significantly affect” national user facilities, fusion research on reactor environments, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies and more.

Wright said the budget hasn’t been allocated down to each individual lab, and that funding decisions will be made “on a lab-by-lab basis.” He said the proposed cuts are a reflection of “the tough world we’re in today.”

“My goal is to grow, not shrink, the output of top-quality science at our labs,” Wright said. “But do we need to be a little wiser and get the political science, not the real science, out of labs? Do we need to be a little bit more efficient running labs? We do.

Comments

Anonymous said…
“But do we need to be a little wiser and get the political science, not the real science, out of labs? Do we need to be a little bit more efficient running labs? We do."

There is certainly some truth in this.
7/09/2025 2:13 PM
Anonymous said…
Wright, not Heinrich, is on the right path. It isn’t much money you spend, but how much value you produce that matters.
7/10/2025 1:57 AM
Anonymous said…
"Wright, not Heinrich, is on the right path. It isn’t much money you spend, but how much value you produce that matters."

I am no fan of Wright but any honest person can tell you that LANL is incredibly inefficient for the amount of money that is spent. Heck we have tons of people that do not even show up, and everyone knows that they are not "working" from home. There is also all sorts of weird support divisions that seem to do nothing.

I have to add that the production side of the LANL is different in that they are much more regulated.

Now Wright could help out but pushing DOE to get rid of the excessive rules that seem to add no value, waste everyones time and that the labs have to hire a bunch of people for.

If Wright think that labs are not as efficient as they can be he should also do his part to help.
7/10/2025 7:23 AM
Anonymous said…
The overhead rates at the labs is insanely high and have grown over time. I can understand how the overhead rates at NNSA labs could be higher compared to other DOE labs but the numbers are just way too high and they seem to keep going up every year and the labs are becoming less efficient over time. The ratio of non-technical to technical workforce has also grown to silly proportions. Every week people spend 25-30% of their time doing paper work and there are endless glitches in the system, so even if you complete a training, fill out a form, or request a document it never works. You can never get hold of people to help, with this and you have to often duplicate your work. Random people are often added to your charge code and at the end of year, again you can never get hold of the person to ask them them what happened. People are scrambling to cover themselves so people on 5 or more charge codes. The budget people are often impossible to get hold of and get wrong forecasts all the time. This is on top of the fact that buildings are too cold or too hot. The managers can send in a request to fix something and a month or two later 20 people will show with half standing around doing nothing and four hours later we are told there is nothing that can be done and the process resets. Somebody gets a new office and there are no blinds to the sun just comes it. New blinds cost 25k or something and take half a year to get. LANL has always been odd but it seems like the past few years after Covid the place turned up inefficiency to crazy levels. You send emails and get these automatic responses saying "I am currently working offsite so my response may be delayed for several business days" If you wait several business days you never hear from them. If you contact their the mangers you do no hear them either. This is not just me, everyone I know has the same issues.

Of course the danger is Wright will in the end just make the labs more inefficient.
7/10/2025 9:40 AM
Anonymous said…
“The ratio of technical to non technical workforce has grown to silly proportions” meanwhile at Livermore while you have this as well but to make matters worse you have a whole group of young engineers that desperately trying to do technician work while collecting SES .3 pay. That also closes the door to technicians moving up into .3 level positions or 300 technical positions. How can the technical staff move up if the Engineers are working down into the senior technical roles?
7/10/2025 6:36 PM
Anonymous said…
7/10/2025 6:36 PM

Talk is that is what is going to happen at LANL as well as they have start moving a ton people off indirect to direct. Expect all sorts of odd people being dumbed into positions that they no real experience for.
7/10/2025 8:13 PM
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