DOGE Is Trying to Close a Field Office That Directly Manages a Nuclear Waste Site

The Department of Energy office in Carlsbad, New Mexico, is specifically set up to handle emergency situations at a nuclear storage facility. DOGE says it terminated the lease.

NUCLEAR WASTE AP-477333928363

The first load of nuclear waste arrived at Carlsbad, New Mexico in 1999. A Department of Energy field office was built in the 1990s to manage the site. Thomas Herbert/AP

Editor’s note: Two days after NOTUS’ initial report, the General Services Administration revoked its lease termination request for the Carlsbad Department of Energy office.

The world has only one working deep geologic repository for nuclear waste — and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is trying to close down the 90,000-square-foot building in Carlsbad, New Mexico, where workers are tasked with directly managing the radioactive site.

Two sources confirmed to NOTUS that the General Services Administration is trying to end the government’s lease for the Skeen-Whitlock Building in Carlsbad, where at least 200 people work to supervise highly radioactive waste from the U.S.’s nuclear defense activities.