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The White House expressed support on Tuesday for Tracy Stone-Manning, President Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management, amid mounting calls among GOP lawmakers to disqualify her from consideration over her ties to a 1989 tree-spiking incident in Idaho.
"Tracy Stone-Manning is a dedicated public servant who has years of experience and a proven track record of finding solutions and common ground when it comes to our public lands and waters," the White House said in a statement. "She is exceptionally qualified to be the next Director of the Bureau of Land Management."
Biden nominated Stone-Manning in April to serve as director of the Bureau of Land Management, a sub-agency of the Interior Department that administers federal lands. The Senate has yet to hold a confirmation vote.
Stone-Manning has faced scrutiny over her links to environmental activists who placed spikes in trees in an effort to sabotage a timber sale in Boise, Idaho in 1989. She admitted to sending a letter to federal officials warning trees were spiked in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest and "a lot of people could get hurt" if a planned timber sale proceeded.
BIDEN NOMINEE ACCUSED OF DECEIVING SENATORS ABOUT INVESTIGATION OF ECO-TERRORIST PLOT
Stone-Manning later cooperated with federal authorities and testified against two others who were convicted.
Tree-spiking is a tactic in which metal spikes or rods are placed in tree trunks to prevent them from being cut down. It is considered a federal crime.
Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog group, called on the U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. to conduct a formal investigation into whether Stone-Manning violated laws against giving false statements in her written testimony to Congress. During confirmation proceedings, Stone-Manning said she had never ‘been the target" of a criminal investigation, though she acknowledged testifying before a grand jury regarding the tree-spiking incident.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, is among the GOP lawmakers who has called for Biden to withdraw Stone-Manning’s nomination.
"It's clear that Ms. Stone-Manning was intentionally trying to deceive the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources," Barrasso said earlier this month. "She told the committee she had never been the subject of an investigation and yet complained about being investigated in the press."
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Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, called for Stone-Manning to be disqualified in a floor speech on Tuesday. He noted that Bob Abbey, head of the Bureau of Land Management under former President Barack Obama, also called for her nomination to be withdrawn.
"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," Sullivan said.
