Rock Falls High grad David Turk up for energy post in the Biden administration

David M. Turk, a 1991 Rock Falls High School graduate and the son of Sterling peace activists Fred and Kay Turk, was nominated Feb. 13 by President Joe Biden to be his deputy secretary of energy, and his confirmation hearing before then Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is being held this morning.

Turk, an attorney, is deputy executive director at the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental energy watchdog based in Paris.

If approved by the committee, Turk next will be considered by the full Senate.

He worked for Biden and Sen Kent Conrad From 2001 to 2007, and also was staff director of the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security.

He was an assistant to President Barack Obama and the senior director for congressional affairs at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, then moved to the State Department, where he was a deputy special envoy for climate change, focusing was on a range of bilateral and multilateral partnerships to combat climate change.

Turk then became the Energy Department’s deputy assistant secretary of energy for international climate and technology, helping coordinate the department’s international climate change and clean energy efforts.

He and his wife, Emily, an architect and sustainability expert, have three children.