BIOGRAPHY
John F. Turner
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International
Environmental and Scientific Affairs
Term of Appointment: 11/13/2001 to present
John Turner was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) on November 13, 2001. In this capacity, he heads U.S. Department of State programs and activities concerning HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, the environment, climate change, oceans affairs, and science and technology.
Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Turner was President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to public-private partnerships to protect land and water resources. With the support of over 200 corporations, during Mr. Turner’s tenure the Fund protected more than 2.8 million acres of parks, wildlife habitat, and open space across America. Between 1989 and 1993, Mr. Turner served as the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where he was responsible for expanding collaborative approaches under the Endangered Species Act, increasing wetland protection and establishing 55 new National Wildlife Refuges, the most of any administration in the nation’s history. He served for 19 years in the Wyoming State Legislature and is a past President of the State Senate.
Formerly, Mr. Turner served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Jackson Hole, and as Chairman of the Institute of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming. Past Board of Directors’ affiliations include Northeast Utilities, the Land Trust Alliance, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, the Murie Center, and the Trumpeter Swan Society. He has served as an advisor to the Hancock Timber Resources Group, Argonne National Laboratories-West, the Yale School of Forestry, and the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources.
Awards presented to Mr. Turner include: the Times/Mirror Conservation Award, Chevron; National Wetlands Achievement Award, Ducks Unlimited; Sheldon Coleman Award, America's Recreation Roundtable; Audubon Stewardship Award, National Audubon Society, Western Region; President's Public Service Award, The Nature Conservancy; Conservation Achievement Award, National Wildlife Federation; Exemplary Service Award, American Outdoors; National Award, Take Pride in America, U.S. Department of the Interior; Citizen of the Year, Teton County, WY.
Among Mr. Turner’s publications are: The Magnificent Bald Eagle, Our National Bird, Random House; "The Private Lands Challenge: Integrating biodiversity, conservation, and private property," Private Property and the Endangered Species Act, University of Texas Press; "Land Use: The Forgotten Agenda," in Thinking Ecologically: The next generation of environmental policy, Yale University Press; and numerous other publications regarding wildlife conservation, outdoor recreation, and natural resource policies.
Mr. Turner received a Master of Science degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from the University of Notre Dame. A native of Moose, Wyoming, Mr. Turner is a third-generation rancher who, with his brothers, operates the Triangle X Ranch in Grand Teton National Park. He and his wife, Mary Kay, are the parents of three children.
http://www.results.gov/leadership/bios/turnerj.html
John Turner -- Department of State
Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, International Environment & Scientific Affairs
Prior to his current appointment, John Turner was President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to public-private partnerships to protect land and water resources. Between 1989 and 1993, he served as the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He served for nineteen years in the Wyoming State Legislature and is a past President of the Wyoming State Senate. John is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, and he received a Master of Science degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Michigan
Contact: 202-647-1554
Council on Environmental Quality
Spotted Owl Advocate Seeks Top Post From Bush
Testimony of Brent Blackwelder President, Friends of the Earth - Submitted to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
"Griles's nomination is particularly disheartening in light of recent reports that John Turner, former Wyoming lawmaker, friend of Vice President Cheney, and noted conservationist was also under consideration for the position. We have no doubt that Teddy Roosevelt would have cast a smile over the administration had it chosen to nominate a proven conservationist such as John Turner as second-in-command at the Department of Interior."
"the plan is to appoint liberal Republicans to key Assistant, Deputy Secretary and Director posts within Interior."
..."Central to this plan are attempts to name John Turner, President and CEO of the Conservation Fund, to the second most powerful post in the department, Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks."
...Why is Turner in line for such a powerful post? Turner is a lifetime close personal friend of Vice President Dick Cheney. Turner has been appointed to the Interior Department Transition Advisory Team along with several allies such as Tom Kiernan, President of the National Parks Conservation Association (NCPA).
Turner's land trust is notorious for training cadres of environmental activists at its Conservation Leadership Network schools, which have been subsidized by Interior Department grant money under the Clinton Administration. Network graduates are trained in combining regulatory threats from federal agencies with the money of land trusts to harass property owners. The goal is to financially drain families and force them to sell their land at greatly reduced prices.
"John Turner's nomination would cut Gale Norton off at the knees," said Chuck Cushman, Executive Director of the American Land Rights Association (ALRA), who supports Norton. "It would defeat the purpose of naming Norton in the first place. "Because of his personal friendship with Cheney and Turner's environmental allies, he would have a separate power base independent of Norton, and could ignore and even reverse her directives," Cushman continued.
"Naming a Clinton Administration ally like John Turner to this key post would be a tragedy for private property rights, and would mean a continuation of Bruce Babbitt's land grabbing policies," Cushman continued.
Turner ally Tom Kiernan's involvement with the transition is "truly incredible," said Cushman. "His organization is adamantly opposed to broad based recreational use of the federal lands.
"NCPA's Annual Report proudly boasts of shutting down use of snowmobiles, tourist aircraft and automobiles in the parks. This greatly restricts families and senior citizens, and benefits only the environmental elite who can afford lengthy, expensive trips such as eco-tourist tours."
Spotted-owl Advocate Seeks Top Bush Post Environmental Activist Enjoys Close Relationship With Vice President
Worldnetdaily
By Joseph A. D'Agostino
© 2001 Human Events
FEBRUARY 26, 2001
Property-rights defenders have mobilized to try to persuade President Bush not to name John Turner -- the man who made the Northern Spotted Owl into the most celebrated of all endangered species -- to a high-ranking post in the new administration.
Sources close to the process say that Turner is being considered for deputy secretary of the interior, assistant secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife and parks, or alternatively, as chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, or CEQ.
Turner's greatest asset is that he is a longtime, close personal friend of Vice President Dick Cheney. His greatest liability, sources say, is that he is being opposed, inside the White House, by Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser. Rove, a Utah native who has long lived in Texas, is said to have a Westerner's understanding of land-use issues.
As director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the last Bush administration, Turner developed a reputation among conservatives as a radical environmentalist -- a reputation he carried with him when he left public office to serve as president of the Conservation Fund.
"He is being considered because he's a fly-fishing buddy of the vice president," said Mike Hardiman, legislative director for the American Land Rights Association, which has compiled a 60-page dossier on Turner. "If he were considered on his own merits, he would not be considered again in a Republican administration."
"We do not comment on personnel matters, as a matter of policy," said Cheney spokeswoman Juliana Glover when asked if Cheney was pushing Turner for an administration post. Turner serves on the Interior transition team.
"Turner has strong support from the environmental community," said Myron Ebell, director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "Martha Marks of the Republican front group Republicans for Environmental Protection is behind him." An opponent of Gale Norton's confirmation as interior secretary, Marks, when asked by reporters on Jan. 15 to name a Republican she favored for interior secretary, answered, "John Turner."
Hardiman said that if Turner were appointed chairman of CEQ, deputy secretary of the interior or assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, he could "work to neutralize Norton, especially because of his friendship with the vice president." (Although they want Turner frozen out completely, conservative environmentalists agree that if the vice president insists Turner get an administration post, the CEQ job would be the least harmful because, unlike the Interior Department, CEQ does not issue regulations, although its reports can stimulate new rules or legislative recommendations.)
Turner's connection with Cheney has deep roots: He served as best man at the vice president's wedding.
According to Hardiman and Ebell, Turner, as deputy secretary of the interior, could push to have his environmentalist friend Mike Brennan named as the department's top legal officer. Turner did not respond to repeated calls to his Conservation Fund office.
His record as an environmental activist includes:
- As director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1989 to 1993, Turner listed the Northern Spotted Owl as an endangered species based on highly dubious science. "The environmentalists claimed that the owl could live only in old-growth forests," said Hardiman. "Well, it turns out that they live in all sorts of forests. They said that noise disturbed them and they would not reproduce. It turns out the owls do just fine in forests where there is timber harvesting. Every time something was being done to mitigate the economic effect on people because of the spotted-owl listing, it came out of [Interior Secretary Manuel] Lujan's office. Turner didn't care about people."
- Requested large budget increases each year.
- Repeatedly labeled enforcing the Endangered Species Act "the highest priority [Fish and Wildlife] Service activity."
- Was the only Interior official held over by the Clinton administration, albeit only for a few months.
- Announced on Jan. 29, 1990, the "America the Beautiful" program to provide "important funding to help protect wetlands, strengthen our endangered species program, and acquire significant new wildlife lands." Turner asked Congress to provide $140 million for the new program, mostly to finance additional endangered species listings and federal land acquisitions. Only $2 million was allocated for building facilities for the public. "Increases are requested to accelerate listings and implement the 1988 amendments to the Endangered Species Act," said Turner's program proposal. Congress gave Turner his request and doubled it the next year.
- Spent $12 million in tax dollars leading the charge to reintroduce the wolf onto Western lands. Local ranchers and farmers opposed the program because wolves prey on livestock and occasionally people.
- Worked closely with Rockefeller family foundations -- during his years as head of the Conservation Fund -- to buy up private lands and prevent their productive use, often turning them over to government control. Indeed, locking up land is the Conservation Fund's express purpose.
- The Conservation Fund's newsletter Common Ground endorsed President Clinton's roadless initiative in November 1999, when the estimated impacted acreage was 40 million acres. The final number was 58 million.
- Five times in the past four years, Common Ground published the League of Conservation Voters' hit list of "anti-environment" Republicans, according to the American Land Rights Network.
- The Interior Department inspector general's office criticized Turner in a 1993 report because Turner took five trips at government expense to his home state of Wyoming that auditors claimed were unjustified. Inspector General Jim Richards told the Jackson Hole Guide (Feb. 17, 1993) that Turner "said he saved the government money by going home. Remarkable."
- The same inspector general found that the Fish and Wildlife Service overpaid land trusts by $5.2 million for land acquisitions while Turner was director. One of those trusts was the Conservation Fund.
