biden s nominee to be deputy-energy secretary. the committee is meeting the committee is meeting today for both a business meeting and a hearing. we are going to begin by considering the nomination of david turk to be the deputy secretary of energy. i am going to start with my opening statement. then, i will turn over to senator barrasso for his. and then, we ll have hopefully one more ready to roll. i was highly impressed by mr. turk at our hearing last week. he clearly has a firm grasp on the wide range of issues facing the department of energy. he is going to bring a wealth of practical experience to the job of deputy secretary. he started his career working in the senate for our former colleague, kent conrad, who speaks very highly of him. he then worked on the senate-judiciary committee for senator biden. he held a series of national-security and foreign-affairs jobs in the house, in the state department, and at the national security council. he spent two years as depu