[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 131 (Tuesday, July 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5091-S5092]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, President Biden 
nominated Tracy Stone-Manning to be the leader of the Bureau of Land 
Management. Many people in my State don't know much about the Bureau of 
Land Management. We don't have a lot of areas actually managed in our 
State by BLM. It has more than 10,000 employees. It manages roughly an 
eighth of the Nation's land, including 65 million acres of our forests. 
The land holds 30 percent of our minerals. Whoever leads this entity 
leads the issue of how we are managing our forests, how we are handling 
our minerals, how we are handling our energy development, livestock 
grazing, recreation, and, yes, timber harvesting.
  The individual President Biden nominated we now know was an Earth 
First! ecoterrorist. She actually typed out, as she has admitted in the 
past, a threatening letter that was sent out to leaders who were doing 
forestry in Idaho, saying in her letter that she typed out--and she has 
admitted that she typed out the threatening letter--that ``we,'' as she 
put it, drove 500 pounds of spikes into the trees in the Idaho forest 
and then threatened them, to say: If you harvest those trees, it will 
not be good for you.

[[Page S5092]]

  The challenge that we have here is that we have an individual who has 
admitted that she actually was a part of a group to do tree spiking. 
Now, what we don't know is if she actually drove a spike. We have no 
idea. But we do know that she turned evidence on the other people who 
did and admitted as a part of her plea bargain that she is the one who 
actually did the letter from a rented typewriter to be able to make 
sure she couldn't be traced and even in the letter said: If you find 
me, it would be ``your worst nightmare.''
  So what do we do about this? Typically, when you are going to deal 
with the person who handles forestry for the United States and the 
Bureau of Land Management and you find out this person has been 
involved in tree spiking, which actually is designed to injure or kill 
people who are logging or people who are actually harvesting the lumber 
in the sawmills and actually processing that lumber, it would cause a 
pause.
  I cannot imagine what it is going to be if she is actually confirmed 
in this position, and the individuals who come to her to get a permit 
to be able to do any kind of forestry work, because they would have to 
actually come to her office, what they would think when they actually 
walked through the door, because the Bureau of Land Management notices 
timber sales and signs off on timber sales for the country. The Bureau 
of Land Management is the one that makes forest product sale plans. The 
Bureau of Land Management is the one that develops, maintains, and 
revises the plans for all public management, including identifying 
areas for timber sales. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management is also 
the group who sends in the firefighters to the wildfires to be able to 
put out the fires, which could be including some of these same trees in 
the days ahead that apparently still have the spikes in them from 
decades ago. Understanding this is not just a loose issue. Individuals 
from the Biden administration just recently have talked about how 
timber harvesters and haulers are critical to forest management across 
the country. We need these individuals to help with our forest 
management. We have wildfires in the areas that individuals in the 
Biden administration have testified because we are actually not 
maintaining our forest management enough. We are not doing enough 
harvesting and thinning in those areas, and so it is actually a 
problem.

  In fact, Christopher French, the Deputy Chief of the National Forest 
System, recently testified the Forest Service research indicates we 
need to dramatically increase the extent of impact of fuels treatment, 
such as thinning, harvesting, planting, and prescribed burning across 
all landscapes.
  But yet the leader for the Bureau of Land Management who has been 
recommended is an individual who has been outspoken in opposition, so 
much so that she has been active in actually promoting spiking trees.
  And it is not just spiking trees. It has also been her environmental 
issues about grazing land--understanding the Bureau of Land Management 
is responsible for millions of acres of grazing pastureland across the 
West. Because the Federal Government owns so much land across the West, 
many ranchers actually then lease out some of that land for grazing. 
She has been outspoken as an opponent against this. That is not going 
to help our ranchers across the West.
  And what was most stark to me was this presentation that she had 
years ago, where she designed several of what she considered to be 
environmental-focused advertisements, this being one of them where she 
has a picture of a young girl, and the heading is: ``Can you find the 
environmental hazard in this photo?''
  And then she lists out at the bottom of it: ``That's right. It's the 
cute baby that's the environmental hazard.''
  With this statement below that, she wrote: ``We breed more than any 
other industrialized nation.''
  Listen, I understand every President has the right to pick their 
team, but when the leader of the Bureau of Land Management considers 
this little girl to be an environmental hazard, have we not crossed a 
threshold of saying our problem with our environment is that we have 
too many little girls?
  Honestly, is anyone else disturbed by this as a possibility to lead 
the Bureau of Land Management, to make a decision about how we are 
going to manage our forests, how we are going to handle our grazing 
land, and what is going to be the general attitude about permitting and 
people?
  Because, apparently, from what she wrote, one of the biggest 
environmental hazards we have as a country is we breed too much.
  I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think it is a little 
girl. And I will absolutely oppose Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the 
Bureau of Land Management. And I would ask my colleagues, even one of 
my colleagues on the other side, to say: Do you not see a problem with 
this nominee?
  If so, let's find another person. Surely there is another Democrat 
out there who doesn't have this set of views, who can lead our 
forestry, our grazing area, and our mineral rights. Surely there is one 
more Democrat who is out there somewhere who does not share these 
views, because I don't think that little girl is a hazard. I think she 
is a blessing.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
speak for 5 minutes and, following me, the Senator from Wyoming be able 
to speak for 8 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered