Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday warned a government shutdown could threaten nuclear weapons safety with funding on the verge of a lapse about a week.
“We have about eight more days of funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the overseer of our nuclear weapons stockpile, the engines that power our nuclear submarines and our aircraft carriers. Eight more days of funding, and then we have to go into some emergency shutdown procedures, putting our country at risk,” Wright said during an appearance on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
The energy secretary said more than 20 people within his own department need to be confirmed by the Senate and blamed Democrats for prolonging those appointments and extending the government shutdown by withholding essential votes.
“I think the gear they’ve been in since the start of the Trump administration has been a meltdown. They don’t have sort of an independent idea or an alternative strategy,” Wright told host Laura Ingraham.
“I think the one word they have is obstruction,” he added.
A contingency plan released by the Department of Energy (DOE) said, “Within the weapons programs, excepted personnel will have oversight concerning stopping or maintaining critical control operations systems that involve nuclear materials or maintenance of one-of-a-kind equipment in order to make shutdown decisions.”
Approximately 60 percent of DOE staff have been furloughed, according an analysis of the DOE contingency plan. The Trump administration also has promised to introduce mass layoffs at federal agencies during the shutdown.
Officials within the Trump administration have slammed Democrats for blocking the approval of a stopgap bill that would keep the lights on in Washington until Nov. 21.
However, Democratic leaders have pushed to extend Affordable Care Act premium subsidies and reverse Medicaid cuts before caving.
“This is one of the dirtiest tricks that is being pulled on the American people right now. Starting today, Oct. 1 and throughout the rest of the month, Americans across this country are going to start getting notifications that their insurance premiums are up to doubling,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said a video alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) explaining their reasoning for voting against a stopgap bill.
In the clip, Sanders cited studies from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania alleging that 50,000 low-income, working-class Americans would die because of Medicaid reductions approved in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and ACA subsidy removals.
But Wright added in his Fox News appearance that government shutdown protocols will make federal operations “incredibly inefficient, just ridiculous for a continuation bill that’s been passed by bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate.”
