[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 107 (Monday, June 21, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4649-S4654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Executive Calendar No. 149, Christopher Charles Fonzone, 
     of Pennsylvania, to be General Counsel of the Office of the 
     Director of National Intelligence.
         Charles E. Schumer, Robert Menendez, Tina Smith, Martin 
           Heinrich, Jacky Rosen, Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard J. 
           Durbin, Tammy Baldwin, Debbie Stabenow, Sherrod Brown, 
           Edward J. Markey, Brian Schatz, Ron Wyden, Elizabeth 
           Warren, Mark R. Warner, Raphael Warnock, Benjamin L. 
           Cardin.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Christopher Charles Fonzone, of Pennsylvania, to be 
General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 
shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), 
the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the Senator from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Casey), are necessarily absent.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), 
the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from North Dakota 
(Mr. Hoeven), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from 
Kentucky (Mr. Paul), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the Senator 
from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), 
and the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Young).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. 
Hoeven) would have voted ``nay'', and the Senator from Indiana (Mr. 
Young) would have voted ``nay.''
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 52, nays 35, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 242 Ex.]

                                YEAS--52

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein

[[Page S4650]]


     Gillibrand
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Kelly
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Rosen
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--35

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Boozman
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hawley
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Moran
     Portman
     Romney
     Rubio
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Booker
     Braun
     Brown
     Casey
     Cramer
     Daines
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Paul
     Risch
     Rounds
     Sasse
     Young
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). On this vote, the yeas are 52, 
the nays are 35.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from New York.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1520

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask 
unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority 
leader in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate Armed 
Services Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1520 
and the Senate proceed to its consideration; that there be 2 hours for 
debate, equally divided in the usual form; and that upon the use or 
yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the bill with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I object for 
the reason I previously stated. I want to thank the Senator for the 
courtesy of presenting the unanimous consent immediately. I appreciate 
that very much.
  I am the first chairman to endorse the type of changes the Senator 
from New York has proposed as they apply to sex-related offenses under 
the UCMJ. It is my intent to include the administration's proposals in 
the base markup of the Defense bill next month, subject to amendments. 
And I anticipate numerous amendments being offered by Members on both 
sides of the aisle. Further, as I have already committed, the committee 
will consider these proposals to include a vote on them, in committee, 
if that is what any Senator desires. That is, in fact, the tradition of 
the committee. If a member wants a vote on an amendment, we will vote.
  I would note that, according to committee records, there has not been 
a vote on this proposal in the committee since 2013, 8 years ago, and 
has not even been introduced as an amendment in committee since that 
time.
  I look forward to having this debate when the committee meets to mark 
up the fiscal year 2022 Defense bill.
  With that, I would reiterate my objection and again thank the Senator 
for her willingness to introduce the unanimous consent initially.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, it is very kind the chairman notes 
that the last time we got a vote in committee was 2013. We have been 
asking for a vote on this for the last 8 years, asking for the last 5 
years to get a floor vote and been denied. This bill has been routinely 
and roundly filibustered and opposed by the chairman and the ranking 
member for the entire 8 years that I have been working on this bill. 
And this bicameral bill, that has 66 Senate cosponsors, should not be 
relegated by a committee that will communicate with the DOD behind the 
scenes. That is what they do. That is what they have been doing.
  This is not a bill related to a technical aspect of warfighting that 
would benefit from the expertise found within the DOD. It is a check on 
the commander's power that has allowed a culture to flourish, where two 
and three victims do not feel comfortable coming forward to report 
their assault and 64 percent--a number that is stubbornly unchanged--
experience retaliation when they do come forward. Moreover, a majority 
of the Members already cosponsor this bill so it is unclear what 
expertise the committee will add. It will only create an opportunity 
for the DOD to water down this much needed reform.
  As a military law expert, Brenner Fissell wrote today in The Hill, 
``An institution with the power to kill people and topple governments 
should not resist our elected Senators' clear will, cheering as a 
procedural loophole allows a small minority to prevent popular forms 
from being implemented.''
  Mr. President, this is the 12th time that I have risen to ask for 
unanimous consent for a very simple reason: The Military Justice 
Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act deserves a vote. The people 
in the military deserve a military justice system worthy of their 
sacrifice.
  We don't have time to delay. Every day that we delay a vote on this, 
more servicemembers are being sexually assaulted and raped.
  I started this request for unanimous consent 28 days ago. Since then, 
an estimated 1,568 servicemembers have been raped or sexually 
assaulted. More will have been victims of other serious crimes, and 
most of them will feel that there is no point in even reporting the 
crime because they have no faith in the current military justice 
system. That system asks commanders, not lawyers, to decide whether 
cases go forward. The lack of faith is understandable. Less than 1 in 
10 sexual assault cases that are considered for command action are 
actually sent to trial, and just a small fraction of those end in 
conviction.
  In the 8 years that we have been fighting for this reform, further 
fault lines in the military justice system have been made evident, 
including deeply troubling racial disparities. It is a disappointment 
that the chairman is not here to hear this information himself.
  In 2017, a report found Black servicemembers were as much as 2.61 
times more likely to have disciplinary action taken against them as 
their White counterparts. In 2019, the GAO found Black and Hispanic 
servicemembers were more likely than White servicemembers to be 
subjected to criminal investigation and to face general and special 
courts-martial. Those statics show a clear and pressing need to address 
what appears to be inherent bias in the current command-controlled 
system.
  To provide our servicemembers with real justice, we must move all 
serious crimes out of the chain of command. This bill will do that by 
making a simple but critical change to the way the military justice 
system handles serious crime. It streamlines how cases move forward. 
Instead of commanders, who have zero formal legal training, making the 
decision to prefer or refer cases to trial, this bill gives those legal 
decisions to highly trained, impartial, professional military justice 
lawyers. It allows the commander to continue to work hand in hand with 
judge advocates to implement good order and discipline in their unit.
  The bill really comes down to one thing: Is there enough evidence to 
move this case forward? We should not put that responsibility on 
commanders, who often know both the accused and the accuser and do not 
have legalized training to be able to make these decisions properly. 
When it comes to serious crimes that can lead to long, more-than-a-year 
sentences, that decision should be made by a legal expert.
  That is the change the bill would make. It is tailored, it is simple, 
and it is an elegant solution to meet a very real problem. Commanders 
still have lots of power. They have the ability to enact nonjudicial 
punishment, which allows them to set the tone for their troops and 
maintain good order and discipline. They will still have the ability to 
put people on restriction and in confinement. They still have the 
ability to issue protective orders. These are the basic tools that 
commanders rely on to implement good order and discipline, not general 
courts-martial.
  If a serious crime is not preferred and then referred by the JAG 
convening authority, it goes right back to the commander, who can 
choose to do several things. He can do nothing. He can carry out 
nonjudicial punishment or administrative separation. He can pursue 
summary or special court-martial.

[[Page S4651]]

  However, this change, despite its simplicity and despite being a very 
small change, will create a seismic shift in how the military justice 
system is perceived by both servicemembers who have been subjected to 
sexual assault and by Black and Brown servicemembers who have been 
subjected to bias.
  We need a professionalized military justice system so that everyone, 
from survivors to defendants, can have more trust in the current 
process--a process that is based on evidence and legal facts and that 
cases will be decided impartially. That is the system our 
servicemembers deserve and is the system that we create by the Military 
Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act.
  We have tried every small ball effort you can imagine. The Presiding 
Officer has been on that committee for years. You watched us pass every 
type of reform that the DOD is OK with. This is the one they have 
fought tooth and nail to prevent implementation of, and even today, our 
chairman wants to narrow it down and reduce it to a very small size--
one crime, one crime only.
  Well, let's just look at the facts. The Vanessa Guillen case was a 
murder case. Under the chairman's own analysis, he would not have 
allowed that case to go forward through the review of a special, 
trained military prosecutor. In fact, her case may never have seen the 
light of day. That is a problem. So we need to treat all serious crimes 
the same.
  We have compromised on this bill. We carved out all the serious 
crimes that are military in nature--going AWOL, not following a direct 
command, anything that the commander would have a special purview 
over--but we draw a bright line at the rest of those serious crimes, 
and that is a good solution. It is what our allies have already done--
UK, Israel, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia--and they saw no 
diminution in command control.
  We need to build a military justice system that is worthy of the 
sacrifices that the men and women in our armed services make every day.
  I yield the floor to the Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I think we just heard the Senator from New York speak 
very strongly about the need for this legislation. She said 12 times 
she has come to the Senate floor to ask for UC on this bill. So we all 
ought to know--not only on this bill but a lot of things the Senator 
from New York is involved in--she is not going to give up. Eight years 
on this bill proves that, her persistence.
  We need to get this done. I would think that a bill that has 66 
cosponsors and the demonstrated need for it is such that the people 
opposing this would be embarrassed, particularly with the 66 
cosponsors.
  I thank Senator Gillibrand for her persistence. I am glad to be with 
her on this subject. I haven't worked as hard as she has, but I believe 
everything she has said, and this bill should pass.
  In the last 15 years, there has been virtually no progress in 
reducing the level of sexual assault in the military. Far too many 
service men and women have experienced sexual assault, and we don't 
even know the full extent of the problem because people are afraid to 
report these because of the retribution that happens as a result of the 
report. Of those who do report, 64 percent experience retaliation.
  But this goes beyond sexual assault. This legislation 
professionalizes the military justice system and would improve trust 
and transparency in the ability of the military to handle all serious 
crimes. The policy of moving the decision to prosecute out of the chain 
of command has been recommended by military justice experts.
  This bill has been considered by the Armed Services Committee for 8 
years in a row, and that is why the time has come now to make sure that 
this bill does not get buried once again in that committee or, as she 
suggested, very narrowly--the committee has had more than enough time 
to review the legislation and propose alternatives. We have even heard 
from the Department of Defense that they can solve this problem, and 
yet it keeps getting worse.
  This bill with so many cosponsors deserves the support and shouldn't 
have to wait any longer to get passed. It is time for the legislation 
to finally move forward, and I urge my colleagues to join in this 
effort to get this done the easiest way possible, and that would be by 
UC.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I have been listening today and a few 
other days, I think, about Senator Gillibrand's efforts to bring up 
what I think is a major reform of the military justice system to the 
point where you won't recognize it as it is today. I hope you 
understand what we are being asked to do here. Senator Reed, who is the 
chairman of the committee, has been objecting.
  Before I got here, I was a military lawyer and Active Duty in the 
Reserves for about 33 years. I was a prosecutor, defense attorney, and 
judge.
  What I would like to challenge this body to do is find me cases where 
the judge advocate has recommended prosecution in a sexual assault case 
in the last 8 years and the commander refused to go forward. I was in 
the military JAG Corps for 33 years. I can only remember one time where 
that was even an issue.
  Previous efforts to reform the system work like the following: If the 
JAG recommends prosecution in a sexual assault case as defined in the 
last piece of legislation and they refuse to go forward, it is taken to 
the commander's commander. So what problem are we trying to solve here?
  What we are doing in this bill is relieving the chain of command when 
it comes to military justice. If the commander no longer is concerned 
about sexual assaults in the barracks, we made a huge mistake. The 
heart and soul of the military justice system is to provide a fair 
trial to the accused, take care of victims, but give the commander the 
tools they need for good order and discipline.
  So the idea of taking the commander out of the chain of command when 
it comes to terrible things like sexual assault I think is a bad idea 
because it is the commander's job to make sure that unit works well. 
Having a bunch of professional prosecutors make the decision without 
the commander being involved is basically relieving the commander of 
what is best for that unit overall.
  Sexual assault is a problem in the military. It is a problem in the 
civilian world. It is a problem all over the place. But the military 
justice system is designed to bring about good order and discipline.
  I can only say that the day that the commander is taken out of the 
responsibility for what happens in that unit is a bad day for good 
order and discipline and I think a bad day for that unit.
  Again, the legal advice given to commanders in cases like we are 
talking about is almost universally followed. There have probably been 
more occasions where a commander will take an iffy case to court just 
to make the point--cases that would never probably get off first base 
in the civilian world.
  But the people pushing this bill always talk about results and 
courts-martial. I think the worst thing the U.S. Senate could do is 
create an impression that a not-guilty verdict is unacceptable in the 
military. Sometimes a not-guilty verdict is the right answer to the 
situation presented to the court. I am beginning to doubt whether or 
not you can get a fair trial in the military if you are accused of one 
of these crimes.
  When politicians attack results in the system, we are sending a 
pretty clear signal: If you are a court-martial panel member, we are 
going to be grading your homework here in the Senate, because there 
seems to be a bias that the only outcome must be a guilty verdict.
  The truth of the matter is that a lot of women go to their graves 
having

[[Page S4652]]

been assaulted and never having reported the events to anybody. We need 
to make it easier for victims to come forward. On occasion, people are 
accused of things they didn't do, and I have been involved in many of 
these cases. On occasion, you will find that the accusation doesn't 
hold water--not sufficient to be anywhere near being beyond a 
reasonable doubt--and sometimes people say things that are just flat 
not true.
  So what I worry about is that, in our effort to reform the system to 
solve a problem that really doesn't exist--commanders ignoring the JAGs 
and not prosecuting people because they like them or they have 
favoritism is not a problem. If you want to talk about reforming the 
military justice system, fine, but let's don't stand here in the U.S. 
Senate and say that commanders in the military routinely turn down 
legal advice to prosecute. They don't. That is just not true. In the 
military, in a general court-martial, you need three-fourths to 
convict.
  If we are going to go down this track of talking about what an 
acceptable outcome should be, then I am going to start introducing 
legislation to change the requirement of the verdict to be unanimous. I 
was a prosecutor for 4\1/2\ years and a defense attorney for 2. I 
understand sort of the military courtroom environment.
  The panel members--the members of the jury--are commissioned officers 
or you can request noncommissioned officers, and the accused has that 
right up to a certain percentage of the panel. These panels are 
constructed not like a civilian court; they are constructed to make 
sure that the jury usually comes from the officer corps, and people 
with the responsibility for that base are picked to serve on these 
juries to make sure that the base is being well run, that people 
receive justice who have been violated, and that those accused of a 
crime have a fair trial. The worst thing that can happen is when a 
commander seems to have favorites and the people he likes get away with 
almost anything and the people the commander doesn't like--well, they 
look for reasons to come down hard on them.
  When I was a young JAG, I would go talk to commanders and first 
sergeants. The worst thing you can do to a unit is play favorites. Call 
them as you see them. You need to show up in the middle of the night in 
the barracks--the commander and first sergeant--when they least think 
you are going to come, and just let people know you are watching them. 
Most enlisted people are 18 to 22 years old, and it is their first time 
away from home.
  We have made some strides that I think are good. We provide victims 
of sexual assault in the military with their own individual counsel. 
Most people don't get that in the civilian world. We are trying to 
train prosecutors on how to handle these cases, and I like that. Yet, 
if we are going to start creating a presumption here--contrary to being 
innocent--that there is only one right answer, then we need to start 
training a bunch of defense attorneys and have a specialty there. The 
worst thing that could happen in a military unit is for somebody to be 
assaulted and to be treated poorly, and nothing happens. Second to that 
is for somebody to be accused of something that is seen as being not 
legitimate. That is why you have trials. That is why you have defense 
attorneys. That is why you have judges. That is why you have 
prosecutors.
  The thing that is unique about the military is that it is not a jury 
of your peers. The jury is made up of the officer corps on that base 
who has the responsibility, usually, to run the base. You can request, 
as an enlisted member, that part of the panel be enlisted, but they are 
going to be the more senior ranks on the base. They are not going to be 
E-3s and E-4s. They are going to be E-8s and E-9s. They are going to be 
the senior enlisted corps, who is responsible for good order and 
discipline and morale on the base. That is what is unique about the 
military justice system.
  I found, as a defense attorney, that people look long and hard at the 
government's case. I will talk later on about some cases I had wherein 
people were accused of using drugs by urinalysis. The system was 
fatally flawed, and over time the military justice system got that 
right.
  I just want Senator Reed to know that, on slowing this train down and 
getting the Members of this body to understand what we are talking 
about, I will support him more. I should be down here talking more. 
Like everybody else, we are busy. I promise to come down more to give 
my side of what we should be thinking about in terms of reform and why 
what is before us is not reform; it is a radical change to the military 
justice system based on, I think, a premise that doesn't exist.
  The one thing I want you to know is there are a handful of cases a 
year in the Army, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and the Navy on 
which the commander refuses to go forward after the JAGs have 
recommended a court-martial in sexual assault cases. That is what we 
are all supposed to be worried about--that the system is biased against 
victims. What can we do to make it easier to report these situations? 
What can we do to convince people that the command is not going to turn 
on you if you are a victim? These are all legitimate things, but to 
fire the entire chain of command based on a premise that, I think, 
doesn't hold water would be bad and would, over time, undercut the 
military's ability to maintain good order and discipline and to be an 
effective fighting force.
  Senator Reed is the chairman of the committee, and I will try to do 
more to help him. I respect Senator Gillibrand a lot, and she is very 
passionate about this. All I can say is that passion and justice have 
to be measured, and we have to be making decisions based on facts, not 
just on an outcome that we would like. When we start talking about a 
case wherein somebody was acquitted and as if that was the wrong 
result, that scares the hell out of me.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Smith). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                   Nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, I am here on the Senate floor this 
afternoon to call on President Biden to withdraw his nomination to lead 
the Bureau of Land Management, Tracy Stone-Manning. He should withdraw 
her for the reasons I am going to talk about here on the Senate floor, 
but let me stipulate that, while I have often spoken about what I 
consider far-left extremist environmentalists who are taking over many 
elements of the Biden administration, often in the context of why I 
voted against their confirmation, I have not yet called on--haven't in 
my entire Senate career--a nomination to be withdrawn before they even 
have gone through their Senate confirmation hearing before a Senate 
committee. But I am doing it this afternoon.
  The reason I have never done this before is because we have not yet 
confronted someone with Tracy Stone-Manning's past, which involves 
being a member, part of an extreme group that performed violent acts as 
part of their platform for getting attention in America--violence, a 
group engaging in overt ecoterrorism.
  By the way, this is becoming a bipartisan issue--a serious bipartisan 
issue--as I am going to talk about in a little bit more detail.
  The Director of BLM from the Obama-Biden administration just 
yesterday made a statement saying that, if these allegations are true, 
which they are, then, he firmly believes that her nomination should be 
withdrawn by the President. That is Mr. Bob Abbey. So this is a serious 
issue, and it is a bipartisan issue.
  Before I talk about Tracy Stone-Manning's involvement with 
ecoterrorism, let me start by saying that BLM is an incredibly 
important and very powerful Federal Agency, particularly as it relates 
to my State, the great State of Alaska. The Alaska BLM manages more 
surface and subsurface acres in my State than in any other State in the 
country, by far. In fact, I haven't done the math, but I believe that 
they manage more acreage in Alaska than they do in the rest of the 
lower 48 combined. That is how important BLM is in my State.

[[Page S4653]]

  Let me give you some of the numbers. This includes over 70 million 
surface acres of land and 220 million subsurface acres. That is the 
land equivalent to about one-fifth of the entire lower 48 States. Most 
States can't even comprehend that size. One-fifth of the lower 48 of 
the United States of America is the amount of land BLM manages just in 
the great State of Alaska. So it is a huge amount of land and, of 
course, by definition, it is a huge amount of power that this Federal 
Agency has over my State and the people I am honored to represent.
  And it is imperative--imperative--for the Director of this Agency, 
the Bureau of Land Management, with so much power and so much control 
over my State and its future in economic opportunity for working 
Alaskan families--that the manager of BLM for the country be 
trustworthy--to be honest, to be fairminded, to be beyond reproach, 
and, certainly, not to have been involved in an organization that 
perpetuated violence against its fellow Americans.
  And from what we know about Tracy Stone-Manning, she is none of these 
things--trustworthy, honest, and fairminded.
  That this administration is full of people with far-left agendas 
certainly isn't surprising. We all know that the national Democratic 
Party is much further to the left than they were even 4 years ago with 
the Obama-Biden administration. But what is shocking beyond surprising 
is that the President of the United States would put forward someone 
for this incredibly important position in BLM who is not only far left 
but a member of a group that was an ecoterrorist organization, a group 
that was undertaking violence against their fellow Americans so they 
could make a point on environmental issues in America.
  This is not an exaggeration. Tracy Stone-Manning was a member of 
Earth First!, a radical, far-left group that has engaged repeatedly in 
what is defined as ecoterrorism.
  But she wasn't just a member of Earth First!; she herself was 
complicit in putting metal spikes--big, thick ones--in trees that were 
meant to either threaten to hurt or gravely injure those Americans who 
were harvesting trees, who were cutting down trees legally, who were 
putting trees in saw mills legally.
  This was a common technique--tree spiking--deployed by such 
ecoterrorists in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
  Earth First! called such tactics ``monkey wrenching.'' That is kind 
of cute. It is dangerous. It could kill people--``monkey wrenching.''
  Logging crews and the Americans who were legally harvesting timber in 
our country might have called such tactics terrifying, and certainly 
called such tactics very, very dangerous.
  So let me briefly talk about the group that Tracy Stone-Manning was a 
member of. Earth First! began in 1980 by disaffected environmentalists 
who thought the movement wasn't radical enough, thought the movement 
wasn't getting enough attention. So they founded a new group that 
wanted to get more attention, sometimes by perpetuating violence. Among 
its proposed founding principles, ``all human decisions should consider 
Earth first, mankind second''--I am quoting now--``mankind second.'' 
OK. Not sure many U.S. Senators would agree with that. And ``the only 
true test of morality is whether an action, individual, social or 
political, benefits the earth.'' These are founding principles of this 
organization.
  Given these principles, it is no mystery that the group's slogan is 
this: ``No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth.'' In their view, ``no 
compromise'' meant destroying property, putting steel spikes in trees 
that could kill someone trying to harvest a tree, and Earth First! 
celebrated and encouraged such actions.
  The group even put out a manual--yes, a manual--detailing tree 
spiking and instructions on how to do other sabotage activities: cut 
down powerlines, flatten tires, burn machinery of those who were trying 
to harvest trees legally.
  We harvest trees legally in Alaska. We have loggers who do that, who 
are from hard-working families.
  David Foreman, the founder of Earth First!, talked about all of these 
activities, and he said: ``This is where the ecoteur can have fun.'' 
That is a quote from the founder of Earth First! ``Fun.'' That is what 
he called this--``fun.''
  Tell that to those violently hurt by some of Earth First!'s tactics.
  This is how an article in the Washington Post, from this time, 
described such an incident of tree spiking that severely, violently 
hurt one of our fellow Americans. And now I am going to quote from this 
article:

       George Alexander, a third-generation mill worker, was just 
     starting his shift at the Louisiana-Pacific lumber mill in 
     Cloverdale, Calif., when the log that would alter his life 
     rolled down his conveyor belt toward a high-speed saw he was 
     working on.

  By the way, I have seen these saws in Alaska, in mills in Alaska. 
They are huge. This isn't just some kind of tiny saw. They are 
gigantic, and they spin at incredibly fast speeds with huge teeth. They 
are dangerous, even when you are operating without tree spikes in the 
trees.

  Let me continue. Here is the continuation of this article from the 
Washington Post: It was May 1987, and George Alexander was 23 years 
old. His job was to split logs. He was nearly 3 feet away when the log 
he was working on hit his saw, and the saw, this giant saw, exploded. 
One-half of the blade stuck in the log. The other half hit Alexander in 
the head--again, these are giant saws--tearing through his safety 
helmet and tearing through his face shield. His face was slashed from 
eye to chin, his teeth were smashed, and his jaw was cut in half.
  That is what Earth First! did to this young American doing his job 
with a tree spike in it.
  I am continuing with the Washington Post article: George Alexander 
had never even heard of a sabotage tactic called tree spiking until he 
himself had become a victim of ``eco-terrorism.''
  That is the Washington Post's word, not my word, ``eco-terrorism.''

       Someone who objected to tree cutting had imbedded a huge 
     steel spike in the log that violently jammed the saw.

  And changed George Alexander's life. Tree spiking.
  That is the Washington Post.
  These were the kinds of tactics that Tracy Stone-Manning, the Biden 
administration's choice to lead the BLM for America, once conspired in. 
Does that disturb you, America?
  Every U.S. Senator on the floor here in this body should be very, 
very disturbed.
  Mr. President--and now I am talking to the President of the United 
States--think about this, sir. I say respectfully: Come on, man. This 
is the most qualified American citizen you can find to be the BLM 
Director?
  She was part of a group--not just a radical, extreme environmental 
group but a radical, extreme, violent, environmental group.
  President Biden, this should be a redline that we all agree to: no 
nominees who conducted violence against their fellow Americans.
  But what did she do specifically? The Biden administration's Director 
of BLM--nominated Director of BLM--here is what she did. In 1989, she 
did a friend, a fellow Earth First! colleague--``comrade'' maybe is a 
better word--she did a friend, a comrade, a fellow comrade a favor. She 
rewrote word-for-word a profane, anonymous letter from this member of 
Earth First! about the 500 pounds of tree spikes that Earth First! had 
hammered into trees in Idaho--by Earth First! Pretty dangerous. Pretty 
violent. She rewrote the letter on a rented typewriter because, she 
later told a reporter, ``her fingerprints were all over'' it. So she 
knew she was obviously involved in criminal activity. So she didn't 
just handwrite it. She didn't want her fingerprints on it. She typed 
it. She then sent the letter to the FBI.
  She kept quiet on what she did for years--that was in 1989--until she 
came forward in 1993 and received immunity for her part in this tree 
spiking in Idaho, 500 pounds of spikes. This is a serious operation. 
Deadly. Could be deadly. She received immunity for her part in this 
tree spiking when prosecutors went after the other members of Earth 
First! and she testified about it.
  Here is something that should be very simple for all of us. No matter 
how young, no matter how naive, the Director of the Bureau of Land 
Management for the United States of

[[Page S4654]]

America should not--and I repeat, should not--have ever been involved 
in ecoterrorism. That is simply unacceptable, and the President of the 
United States should get that, and certainly every U.S. Senator should 
get that.
  Working with people who were so radical on environmental issues that 
they thought it was OK to perpetuate violence against their fellow 
American citizens--come on, man.
  President Biden, you cannot be serious.
  It is not only me who thinks this is an outrage. I want to compliment 
my Senate colleague Senator Barrasso, who has been doing a great job. 
Unfortunately, our press has been asleep at the switch. Senator 
Barrasso has been doing a great job of highlighting these very issues. 
But, as I said earlier, this is now becoming a bipartisan issue. It is 
not just me and Senator Barrasso who have been raising this issue. Just 
yesterday, Bob Abbey, who led the BLM from 2009 through 2012 under 
President Obama and Vice President Biden, said the following:

       If the reports regarding Ms. Stone-Manning's involvement 
     with spiking trees are true, then I firmly believe she should 
     immediately withdraw her name from further consideration for 
     the BLM director job.

  Let me read that again. The BLM Director of the Biden-Obama 
administration just yesterday said the following:

       If the reports regarding Ms. Stone-Manning's involvement 
     with spiking trees are true, then I firmly believe she should 
     immediately withdraw her name from further consideration for 
     the BLM director job.

  Well, guess what. The reports about her involvement with tree spiking 
by the ecoterrorist organization Earth First! meant to harm her fellow 
Americans are true. They are true.
  Madam President, there are other issues that also call into question 
Ms. Stone-Manning's character. I am not going to get into these. I will 
let others focus on them--low interest loans, other things. That is in 
some ways, in my view, a distraction. Her involvement with an 
organization that was focused on ecoterrorism certainly disqualifies 
her, and the President of the United States should know this.
  I didn't agree with Bob Abbey on much when he was the head of BLM 
under the Obama-Biden administration, but I certainly agree with him 
about Tracy Stone-Manning, and I believe the President of the United 
States should withdraw her name from further consideration. If the 
President doesn't do that because he gets pressure from the extreme 
left, then I certainly hope--I certainly hope--my colleagues here in 
the U.S. Senate, Democrats and Republicans, will resoundingly vote to 
reject this nomination when it comes to the Senate floor.
  Yes, we have differences on issues of resource development, energy 
for America, certainly on issues of jobs and resource development in my 
great State, the great State of Alaska. We have differences. There is 
no doubt about it. But here is the thing: We all know--I think every 
one of us, all 100 Senators, know and would say publicly that these 
differences should be resolved peacefully in debates here on the Senate 
floor, at the ballot box, arguing these issues--forcefully, yes, but 
not violently, not with violence.
  So if this nominee comes to this floor, it shouldn't be even a close 
vote; it should be 100 to 0 rejecting her.
  To my Democratic colleagues, I hope you join me, like Mr. Bob Abbey, 
in saying: Mr. President, guess what--you screwed up here. Withdraw 
her.
  But if he won't do that, I hope every U.S. Senator votes against 
this. We cannot condone, endorse, or vote for somebody who has been 
part of an ecoterrorist, radical, extreme, violent organization.
  My colleagues, America will be watching. If you vote for her, you 
have to go home and explain that vote to your fellow Americans. As I 
mentioned, it is one thing for this administration to put forward far-
left, extreme environmental nominees. It is quite another to put 
forward a far-left, extreme, violent environmental nominee, and that is 
what she is.
  To the President of the United States: Respectfully, sir, you need to 
withdraw this nomination.
  To my colleagues on the Senate floor here: Respectfully to all of 
you, if the President doesn't take this commonsense action, we need to 
decisively reject this nomination when it comes to the floor of the 
U.S. Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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