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Wright Delivers Remarks at the Nevada National Security Site, Oct. 20, 2025

October 20, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:10:59

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright delivered remarks at the Nevada National Security Site, in the Department of Energy’s upload of the October 20, 2025 event, on the twentieth day of the government shutdown. Wright said the department had that day been forced to furlough virtually all of its federal employees at the Nevada office — 68 employees at the site, he said in questions — while creative funding work inside the administration had kept the site’s more than 3,000 mostly contractor workers employed at least through the end of the month.

Nationwide, Wright said, the National Nuclear Security Administration had furloughed 1,400 federal employees — the first furloughs in the NNSA’s 25-year history, as he stated it. He described the Nevada work as maintaining a secure, ready nuclear stockpile, sensing missing nuclear materials, cybersecurity, and next-generation weapons design, and warned that a workforce out of work too long takes other jobs — a loss to the country and to those families. He thanked Nevada Senator Cortez Masto for voting to keep the government open and urged Nevadans to reach out to Senator Rosen, whose support he said he expected.

Why it matters

The Nevada remarks are Wright’s shutdown record at its sharpest point: the Energy Secretary announcing an unprecedented NNSA furlough at the site that underwrites the nuclear stockpile, and naming the Senate politics around reopening the government from the podium of a national-security facility.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Secretary Wright’s shutdown figures at the Nevada National Security Site on October 20, 2025 — 68 site employees and 1,400 NNSA employees furloughed nationwide, the first in the agency’s 25-year history, with contractors funded through the end of the month, all as he stated them. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at the Nevada National Security Site - October 20, 2025” (official upload, embedded above; remarks and answers as delivered by Secretary Wright).