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Health & Science

Trump Administration Backtracks on Closing the Field Office That Oversees a Nuclear Waste Site

The General Services Administration is now revoking its request to terminate the lease for the building set up to manage emergencies at a New Mexico nuclear waste repository.

Nuke Repository Plutonium

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository, is near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

By Anna Kramer

March 6, 2025 12:46 PM

The Trump administration is backtracking on plans to close a New Mexico Department of Energy office building that managed one of the country’s most crucial nuclear waste storage sites.

The General Services Administration, which has been terminating leases as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s push to substantially slash the government’s real estate footprint, is revoking a lease termination for the DOE’s Carlsbad office, according to a letter obtained by NOTUS.

Elon Musk’s DOGE had listed the Carlsbad office for closure on the DOGE website. NOTUS confirmed on March 3 that the office — which oversees the world’s only geologic repository for nuclear waste — was scheduled to be closed. The GSA sent lease termination letters for many of the government buildings listed on the DOGE website.

Now, according to a letter shared by New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s office, the GSA is revoking that lease termination request to the company that owns the building. “This letter shall serve as written notice of the government’s revocation of its prior notice to exercise termination rights and revocation of lease amendment,” it reads.

The building is still listed among the leases DOGE has terminated on the office’s website.

Some DOE staff were alarmed at DOGE’s lease termination. The 90,000 square foot building was designed specifically to oversee the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant program and hosts hundreds of staff that oversee the nuclear waste site. The building itself is part of the plans and drills for an emergency with transuranic waste, which comes from the country’s defense-related nuclear activities.

As NOTUS previously reported, closing the office would have strained the staff’s ability to oversee the site. Among one of President Donald Trump’s first moves this term was an order requiring all federal workers to return to office, but few other buildings in the small Carlsbad community could have supported the staff there.

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Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.