The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved David Turk to be deputy secretary of energy in a roll call vote Thursday, clearing the way for the full Senate to confirm the former Biden staffer and Obama administration official for the agency’s No. 2 job.
The Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for Turk at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor.
Turk, currently deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency, was previously part of the Obama administration’s State and Energy departments. He worked on climate issues and the New Start nuclear arms-control treaty with Russia in the Obama administration.
Before Obama was elected, and Biden became Obama’s vice president, Turk was a member of Biden’s Senate staff.
In his confirmation hearing March 4, Turk pledged if confirmed to examine the new Department of Energy policies at the Hanford Site in Washington state that have some local small business owners worried about the future of their companies.
These small businesses owners say they were surprised by DOE changes that, effective in January, put new prime contractors at the former plutonium production site in charge of work that used to be handled by independent businesses under subcontracts.
