The word layoffs is an indecipherable hieroglyph at Sandia National Laboratories. 

They probably need an anthropologist to tell them what it means, because in Sandia's nearly 80 year history even old timers can't recall the nuclear weapons research and development institution using that dreary noun. But there it is, against all odds and splashed across the headlines for all to guffaw at. 

Like so many other norms under Trump, this one died a public death with the Labs announcing that 1 to 3 percent of its workforce--as many as 510 well-paid employees--would be let go due to a "restructuring" at the place where nuclear weapons are born and raised.

Say what? doesn't come close to describing the surprise this has been greeted with. 

Most everyone missed or didn't take to heart the recent congressional testimony of Sec. of Energy Chris Wright where he detailed a sharper definition for the mission of the nation's 17 national laboratories and forthcoming budget cuts. 

Sen. Martin Heinrich, the senior Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee where Wright made his case, did see it coming, saying Wright's new paradigm would mean slashing $2.75 billion and 7,700 jobs.

Months ago the New Mexican raised a red flag over funding for Los Alamos Laboratories but it turns out that the budget for that nuclear weapons outpost will actually grow under Wright's plans--not so Sandia. 

Los Alamos is so busy they have placed employees in Santa Fe because of a lack of space as they focus on nuclear weapons modernization. Sandia's mission is broader and more vulnerable.

ABQ'S SPINAL CORD 

Heinrich and the rest of the state's DC delegation, always ready to boast of  how they "protect the labs," had not a word to say as Sandia dropped their bombshell (thankfully not a live one). Perhaps being made speechless by the seemingly unprecedented news is their excuse. 

Sandia, the spinal cord of the ABQ metro economy, has a workforce of nearly 17,000 with 13,000 of them in ABQ and the remainder in California. The annual budget is around $3.5 billion. That is major moolah in a state of a bit more than 2 million souls and not much of a private business climate.

When the Alligators were done choking on their tortillas, they posed the all-important question: Is this a one and done deal or are we in for something more disturbing?

DOWNSIZING CAUSE  

The downsizing appears to be driven not only over cost concerns but the administration's antipathy toward renewable energy research. 

We see where $49 million is being stripped from the Lab's budget for research for the Holy Trinity of the environmental left-- solar, wind and geothermal--seen on the right as a triple waste of time.  

And that line item to have Sandia look into methane mitigation? Forget it. It's gone and to the applause of the oil boys. 

The hit on renewables comes with the support of the now notorious Project 2025 whose manifesto reshaping the federal government was circulating even before Musk and the DOGE cutters came along.  

A PEAK IS REACHED 

The one and done believers on the layoffs are getting the benefit of the doubt because the target is nonnuclear items which is the lion's share of the budget. And while the layoffs stunned the city, there has been an explosion (pun intended) in employment at Sandia.

Looking at the 2020 numbers, total jobs skyrocketed to 14,000 with 1,100 new positions amid the start of the updating of the nation's nuclear arsenal.That compares with the aforementioned 17,000 employees today, so even if the full 3 percent layoff target is implemented, Sandia's recent rapid growth is hardly negated. 

A former aide to Senator Jeff Bingaman, who chaired Senate Energy as did Senator Pete Domenici and who were were known for safeguarding the lab budgets for decades, was cautious about the future, telling us:

Let's face it. After Trump the federal government will never be the same. The peak of many programs has been reached. For Sandia that peak was high. Scaling new ground above it is probably not in the cards. 

This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.