DOE Staff Crunch Slows American Energy Innovation (September 2025) explores the relationship between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) staffing levels and funding to catalyze and implement American energy innovation.
For decades, DOE has played a critical role in supporting American energy innovation and increasing U.S economic competitiveness in global markets. DOE was built to advance national goals, including the development of new energy resources, lowering costs to consumers, and building out America’s infrastructure.
In recent years, there has been broad support to expand DOE’s mission to fund projects across all “valleys of death” between innovation and commercial deployment. While the prior administration supported a broad suite of clean energy technologies, current DOE leadership is focusing its commercialization activities more narrowly on nuclear, geothermal, and critical minerals, among other technologies.
Regardless of the technology, DOE’s ability to efficiently move funding from appropriation to implementation relies on an adequately staffed team with the appropriate expertise. Despite the need for more rapid processing of awards, contracts, and loans to support the private sector, DOE is currently pursuing deep, unprecedented cuts to its staff. These cuts are part of a plan to “rein in bloated federal spending” even though DOE staff accounts for between 2-5% of its total budget.
Staffing Trends in DOE Science & Energy Innovation Programs
Even after recent funding recissions, DOE’s cuts to staff put the department at risk of slowing its support to American energy innovation. These staffing cuts have resulted in the largest budget-to-staff ratio in at least a decade. DOE now has roughly $35M of funding to manage per federal employee – a significant increase from 2017 where DOE had $5M of funds per federal employee to manage.
Ratio of Total Budgetary Resources to Federal Staff and Spending Rate, Science and Energy Innovation Programs (Excluding LPO)
Like any organization, when DOE has too few staff the result is slower funding implementation. From 2017 to 2021, DOE’s science and energy innovation programs obligated almost 90% of available funds each year. After DOE received new funding starting in 2022, the department was unable to increase its staff fast enough and the rate of obligations fell significantly.
The ratio of staff to budget is not a perfect proxy for the pace or quality of program implementation. Reorganizations and staff reductions can be useful tools for improving efficiency and creating new opportunities to employ new staff with the necessary skillsets. However, the very large staffing cuts by the Trump administration appear to be much deeper than justified based on operational efficiency, with no indication that the remaining staff will be augmented by new hires with new or improved skills. DOE now faces the largest imbalance in its budget-to-staff ratio in its history, based on FY26 budget requests.
The White House and Congress both have ambitious goals in their energy policy, from scaling nuclear power and expanding energy exports, to achieving artificial intelligence breakthroughs. Achieving these goals will require a U.S. Department of Energy that is staffed with enough people—and the right people—to lead the department to its full potential.
