Nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, back in 1987, a 23-year-old mill worker named George Alexander struck a tree spike--a tree spike like this one--in the log that he was processing. His sawblade shattered, and it caused a wound stretching from his eye all the way down to his chin. His teeth were smashed, and his jaw was brutally dashed in half. The incident made national news.

Just 2 years later, Tracy Stone-Manning rented a typewriter to disguise her identity. She then typed and sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of an ecoterrorist group. She conspired to spike trees with spikes just like this one--hundreds and hundreds of pounds of spikes just like this one. In so doing, endangered the lives of foresters, of loggers, and of firefighters. She ended the letter with the following words:

You bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get hurt.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until after her nomination hearing that we learned of her work with the ecoterrorist organization EarthFirst!. It wasn't until after her hearing that we learned that she had been issued a target letter by a Federal grand jury and had hired an attorney to negotiate an immunity deal prior to testifying in the tree-spiking case.

It wasn't until after her hearing that we read her words in a newspaper saying that she ``could have been charged with conspiracy were it not for her agreement with the U.S. attorney.'' It wasn't until after her hearing that we learned that she was compelled by that same Federal grand jury to submit fingerprints, writing samples, and hair samples.

Now, beyond her involvement with the ecoterrorist group, since her hearing, we learned of public statements she made just months ago calling for homes to burn in forest fires. We learned of statements she made saying grazing is destroying the West and calling for population control measures and even labeling children as environmental hazards.

After all of this, a White House official called her nomination a ``massive vetting failure.'' It was that, but it is so much worse than that. She was and is a radical. She supported a criminal conspiracy to engage in ecoterrorism.

Our committee asked her if she had ever been the subject of a criminal investigation. She, in a sworn statement, lied. Our committee never had the opportunity to ask her about these shameful acts. Her past actions, her positions, her statements, and her goals would each, individually, disqualify her from service. But combined, they make her a, frankly, offensive candidate to the countless people in Utah and throughout the West and beyond who rely on Bureau of Land Management cooperation for their livelihoods and for their way of life.

Now, inexplicably, President Biden has not withdrawn this nomination, though Ms. Stone-Manning has seemingly gone into hiding. She has left unanswered dozens of questions formally posed to her by me and by my colleagues. If confirmed, she will lack the credibility with constituents throughout the Nation that she would otherwise need to perform this job. She just won't have it. And any accomplishments made by the Biden administration to steward our lands will be overshadowed by her specter of deceit.

The Bureau of Land Management controls 42 percent of the land in Utah. In fact, the BLM controls more land in Utah than Utahns do--a lot more.

So I speak for a lot of people back home today, people who are insulted by President Biden's nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning to run the Bureau of Land Management. Her confirmation would be bad for Utah, bad for the Bureau of Land Management, and bad for honesty and accountability in government.

Needless to say, she will not receive my vote. It defies logic, reason, and the greatest traditions of this body to think that we would confirm her today. I urge my colleagues to reject this nomination.

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