Investing in A New Vision for the Environment and Surface
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I would associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues who have just been here acknowledging the heroic work done by the Capitol Police on January 6. Clearly, they are very deserving of all the recognition that they have received. What they went through on that very harrowing day I think is a reminder to all of us of the importance of the work they do day in and day out and just the challenge they face defending this Capitol and people who work in it. I, like my colleagues, am enormously grateful and just want to join in recognizing that with the award they just received.
I also point out that we are in the midst of a debate here on a bill that was negotiated in a bipartisan way. It is great to see Republicans and Democrats working together, talking together, coming up with solutions, whether we agree with them or not. But the fact that there are people sitting down across the table from each other and working through some of these big issues that we face here, one of which, obviously, in this country is maintaining a strong infrastructure, is encouraging, and in many ways, it is refreshing to see that happening here. Nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning
Mr. President, it is sort of ironic, too, that in the light of that spirit of bipartisanship, that we continue to see nominees brought to the floor who don't reflect that spirit.
The Senate voted last week to bring Tracy Stone-Manning's nomination to the Senate floor. It is difficult to know exactly what President Biden was thinking when he decided to nominate Ms. Stone-Manning for Director of the Bureau of Land Management. Perhaps the administration's vetting wasn't thorough enough. Otherwise, it is pretty difficult to understand why the President would nominate an individual with ties to an ecoterrorist organization--an ecoterrorist organization--to head the Bureau of Land Management.
That is not all. She was actually involved in a tree-spiking plot during her time in graduate school, sending a threatening letter to the U.S. Forest Service at the request of one of the individuals involved in spiking trees in an Idaho forest.
Tree spiking, as many know, involves hammering spikes into the trunks of trees to cripple chain saws or the equipment at the sawmill where the trees are processed. It poses a significant threat to logging and mill equipment, but most seriously, it poses a threat to human life.
In a famous incident, a worker at a lumber mill in California was engaged in splitting logs when his saw hit a spiked log and the saw exploded. I will let a Washington Post story covering the incident speak for itself, and I quote from the Washington Post, as follows:
He was nearly three feet away when the log hit his saw and the saw exploded. One half of the blade stuck in the log. The other half hit Alexander in the head, tearing through his safety helmet and face shield. His face was slashed from eye to chin. His teeth were smashed and his jaw was cut in half.
Alexander had never even heard of a sabotage tactic called tree spiking until he became a victim of ``eco-terrorism.'' Someone who objected to tree cutting had imbedded a huge steel spike in the log that violently jammed the saw.
Then the Washington Post continued, and I quote again:
Tree spikes are among the most vicious of the strategies. While the tree is still in the forest, the spike is driven in at an angle so the head is hidden in the bark. It can shatter a chain saw on impact, sending pieces of razor-sharp steel flying.
It is very hard for me to believe that we are seriously considering confirming an individual to head the Bureau of Land Management who was in any way involved with tree spiking.
Furthermore, Ms. Stone-Manning apparently initially refused to cooperate with the subsequent investigation into the tree-spiking incident, only coming clean after it became clear that she could face criminal charges for her role in the incident. Equally troubling is the less-than-forthright response that she provided to the Senate on her nominee questionnaire about whether or not she had ever been investigated by a law enforcement organization.
Ms. Stone-Manning's involvement in the tree-spiking incident is not the only reason to be concerned that she has extremist views. As a graduate student, she also argued for population control, in one instance referring to a child as an ``environmental hazard.'' Last year, she took advantage of Twitter to promote an article her husband wrote in which he expressed satisfaction at the idea of seeing homes people have built in forests burn in fires.
President Obama's first Bureau of Land Management Director withdrew his support for Ms. Stone-Manning's nomination over her involvement in the tree-spiking plot. A Deputy Director at the BLM under President Obama also expressed his concern over the nomination, noting:
Much of the focus seems to be whether this is a Democrat or Republican thing, but the lens I look at this through is as a 38-year career person in both agencies. . . . [Y]ou need the career employees to implement your agenda successfully across the West. Your leader has got to be respected by career employees and across the landscape, in both blue and red states.
His point is well-taken. How are BLM employees and the many Americans who regularly interact with the Bureau of Land Management going to feel about working with Ms. Stone-Manning? Our public lands are used for a variety of purposes, including recreation, livestock grazing, and timber harvesting. What kind of attitude should we expect from Ms. Stone-Manning to display toward timber harvesting? Is this really the best President Biden can do when it comes to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management?
As 75 House Republicans said in a letter to President Biden urging him to withdraw the nomination, ``There is no doubt that someone with this history of extreme, violent views should not be in a position of authority at an agency responsible for managing 245 million acres of federal lands and 700 million acres of mineral estate.''
I wish I could say that Ms. Stone-Manning's nomination is an aberration, but, in fact, President Biden has nominated a number of candidates with extremist views for various offices.
Last week, we voted on his nominee to head U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a nominee who failed to receive even a single bipartisan vote in committee, due in part to her refusal to say she won't completely bypass Congress when fashioning policies to deal with those who are in the United States unlawfully.
Then there is the President's nominee for head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, whose main interest seems to be targeting law-abiding gun owners and who has communicated a clear disdain for gun owners in public remarks. This nominee was also apparently the subject of a complaint for making racist remarks while working at ATF.
Then there are the multiple President Biden nominees now serving in the Department of Justice who have publicly expressed their support for defunding the police. That is right--President Biden filled key posts at the Justice Department, the Department charged with enforcing the law and prosecuting criminals, with individuals who have gone on the record with their support for defunding the police.
I suppose it is no real surprise that President Biden nominated an individual to the Bureau of Land Management who once referred to a child as an ``environmental hazard'' when you consider who he nominated to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra's rabidly pro-abortion views put him far to the left of the majority of Americans. Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans believe that there should be at least some restrictions on abortion. President Biden's HHS Secretary doesn't seem to support any restriction on abortion, and if he does, I would sure like to hear about them. During his time in the House of Representatives, Secretary Becerra repeatedly voted against banning partial-birth abortion, an abortion procedure so heinous that I think most Americans would rightfully shrink from seeing it performed on an animal, let alone a human being.
As I said, given that, I suppose it is not hard to believe that President Biden nominated an individual to the Bureau of Land Management who once described a child as an ``environmental hazard.''
President Biden tends to present himself as a moderate and someone who will bring people together. He said in his inaugural address: ``I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans.'' In practice, however, too often he has seemed to be a President for the far-left wing of the Democratic Party.
I hope that my Democratic colleagues will think twice before confirming Ms. Stone-Manning as head of the Bureau of Land Management. Involvement with ecoterrorism should be a disqualifying factor for heading up this Agency.
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Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe).
The result was announced--yeas 95, nays 3, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 294 Leg.] YEAS--95 Baldwin Barrasso Bennet Blackburn Blumenthal Blunt Booker Boozman Braun Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Collins Coons Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Cramer Crapo Cruz Daines Duckworth Durbin Ernst Feinstein Fischer Gillibrand Grassley Hagerty Hassan Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Hoeven Hyde-Smith Johnson Kaine Kelly Kennedy King Klobuchar Lankford Leahy Lujan Lummis Manchin Markey Marshall McConnell Menendez Merkley Moran Murkowski Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Paul Peters Portman Reed Risch Romney Rosen Rounds Rubio Sanders Sasse Schatz Schumer Scott (SC) Shaheen Shelby Sinema Smith Stabenow Sullivan Tester Thune Tillis Toomey Tuberville Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young NAYS--3 Hawley Lee Scott (FL) NOT VOTING--2 Graham Inhofe
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Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe).
The result was announced--yeas 20, nays 78, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 295 Leg.] YEAS--20 Barrasso Blackburn Boozman Braun Cornyn Cotton Cruz Daines Ernst Grassley Hagerty Johnson Kennedy Lankford Lee Lummis Paul Rubio Sasse Scott (FL) NAYS--78 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Booker Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Collins Coons Cortez Masto Cramer Crapo Duckworth Durbin Feinstein Fischer Gillibrand Hassan Hawley Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Hoeven Hyde-Smith Kaine Kelly King Klobuchar Leahy Lujan Manchin Markey Marshall McConnell Menendez Merkley Moran Murkowski Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Peters Portman Reed Risch Romney Rosen Rounds Sanders Schatz Schumer Scott (SC) Shaheen Shelby Sinema Smith Stabenow Sullivan Tester Thune Tillis Toomey Tuberville Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young NOT VOTING--2 Graham Inhofe
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