July 23, 2021 |
In Washington, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted on party lines to advance President Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management. The debate was heated, but it changed no minds. The committee deadlocked on the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning.
Under Senate rules, the 10-10 vote means the nomination will advance to the floor of the U.S. Senate for consideration.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, the committee’s ranking member, has led the charge against the nomination. Stone-Manning’s connection to an environmental terrorist group which spiked trees in the Clearwater National Forest of Idaho in 1989 has been the focus of the opposition.
Stone-Manning testified during the trial of key members of the group that she typed and delivered a threatening letter warning U.S. Forest Service workers and loggers to keep out of the forest. A logger was injured and a saw mill suffered damage as a result of the tree-spiking.
On Thursday, Barrasso said the nominee “continues to harbor extremist views that most Americans find reprehensible.”
Senate Energy Committee Chair Joe Manchin of West Viriginia was the critical vote on the nomination. As a moderate Democrat who has bucked his party on other issues, Manchin was the subject of intense lobbying to block the nomination.
During his opening comments Thursday, Manchin said while he took the allegations seriously, he came to a different conclusion and focused only on who spiked the trees in the federal forest.
Parliamentary procedure requires the deadlocked nomination to advance to the full senate where the 50-50 partisan divide means the nomination could be decided by one flipped vote either way.
The Bureau of Land Management oversees 65 million acres of forest and woodlands across 12 western states and Alaska in accordance with the multiple-use mandate of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. The spikes that were driven into the trees in Idaho remain, posing a threat to firefighters and loggers to this day.
Pictured above: Tracy Stone-Manning testifying before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Screenshot via Senate.gov.
