Republicans have described Tracy Stone-Manning, the nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, as an ‘eco-terrorist’ due to her part in an old tree-spiking event in Idaho. Despite that, Democrats are getting ready to push through her nomination for the position in the government agency.
The vote about Manning’s nomination establishes a fight between Democrats and GOPs over a government agency that is at the heart of climate change policy. The vote is slated for August 05, 2021, in the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. An agency in the Department of the Interior, the BLM not only oversees grazing, drilling and logging on public land but also manages the rights to extract minerals from Indian lands. The agency is also responsible to balance oil, coal and gas extraction through natural resource recreation and protection. It is also key to US President Biden’s plan to discontinue gas and oil drilling on federal pieces of land by phases. GOP attorneys general lead the opposition of 15 states to the plan.
The University of Colorado Boulder’s Mark Squillace stated that Stone-Manning would give more support to protecting public pieces of land for public applications. As for Squillace, the above-mentioned does not please the people who want the parcels of land to be utilized for further development.
As for Squillace, the people are using these issues to stop the confirmation of Stone-Manning. Squillace does not feel that anyone cares about what Stone-Manning did three decades before. The 55-year-old has developed a political career in US environmental policy. She worked as not just an assistant of Montana Senator Jon Tester but also as a head of staff under former Montana Governor Steve Bullock and the chief of the Montana state’s environment agency. In the agency, she became reputed among ranchers, environmentalists and so forth as one who tried to reconcile opposing parties. Stone-Manning now serves as the senior conservation policy advisor at the NWF (National Wildlife Federation).
Republicans in the senatorial committee claim that her deeds in the late 1980’s, and explanation of that incident over the intervening period, do not make her fit for the position. So, those GOPs wrote a letter to Biden that demands the President take her nomination back as well as plan on voting against her.
Republicans also resisted the selection of Deb Haaland as the Secretary of the Interior after the latter opposed the expansion of gas and oil drilling on US public property. While Deb Haaland narrowly gained confirmation, that procedure gradually changed into a climate policy-related proxy fight.
In March 2021, conservatives had more success in making the Biden government take back its choice of Elizabeth Klein as the deputy secretary of the US Department of the Interior. The withdrawal followed senate members from oil and coal states taking an exception to Klein’s notion that the US should control its fossil fuel use.
John Leshy from the University of California Hastings stated that the gas industry, coal segment and oil sector are facing major declines or are on the decline. While Leshy associated that with market forces rather than US government policies, he said that there are fiercest battles about the three industries’ future in the Dept. of the Interior.
Leshy stated that there is much frustration related to that and that it has become prominent. There are no criminal charges against Stone-Manning, and she did not take part in the past attempt to drive heavy pieces of metal into Clearwater National Forest trees. Additionally, law enforcement later arrested two men for committing those tree-related federal crimes.
The term ‘tree spiking’ refers to a practice of trying to prevent logging through the insertion of rods of metal into plants that could harm saw blades. Activists who expected to make tree cutting uneconomical in the 80’s used tree spiking, which was a dangerous practice as spikes could kill or injure loggers.
As a young graduate, Stone-Manning retyped and delivered a letter with profane language to the United States Forest Service for one of those activists who committed tree spiking. According to Stone-Manning, it was an attempt to not just warn authorities but also protect the public from harm.
GOPs have blamed Stone-Manning for lying to legislators regarding whether the nominee had been an investigation target at all, an allegation that the government has refused to accept.
The ten Democrats and ten GOPs on the said committee would probably divide evenly in keeping with party opinion. That would compel New York Senator Chuck Schumer to discharge Manning’s nomination, a rare action that would take the nomination to the full US Senate for an ultimate vote. In the event of the US Senate also dividing in keeping with party opinion, then Democrats would require Vice President Kamala Harris to act as a tie-breaker.
The US White House released a statement supporting Stone-Manning. In the statement, it describes her as a committed public servant with a proven history of solving issues and finding common ground regarding public assets. It finds Manning to be exceptionally competent to become the next Bureau of Land Management Director.
GOPs claim that recent statements from people involved in that spiking incident suggest that Manning had a greater part in it. Senate Majority Leader and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell stated that the Republican Party knows that Manning lied about her accused involvement in past eco-terrorism to the US Senate. Therefore, McConnell recommended an immediate withdrawal of Manning’s nomination through the US White House. On the other hand, Democratic Senator Tester stated that the allegations against Manning seem to have a political smear.
Michael Merkley, former USFS investigator and a special agent tasked with the case, told Senate legislators that Manning was combative and unhelpful when the administration initially looked into the incident. Merkley also stated that Manning got a letter suggesting that there would be an indictment against her in relation to her participation. As for Merkley, she came forward not before getting caught but after her lawyer helped her achieve immunity for testifying against activists Jeffrey Fairchild and John Blount.
