“The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Tracy Stone-Manning to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) despite a decades-old tree-spiking incident that led to GOP opposition to her nomination,” The Hill reported on Thursday, September 30, 2021 (read story here). The vote was 50-45.
There’s an old wise saying that most people “usually have two reasons for what they do, a good reason, and the real reason.”
The real reason Republicans don’t like Stone-Manning (photo right, bio here) is because she was an environmental activist in her student days.
It’s unlikely they would like anyone Biden, or any Democrat, picked to manage federal lands. The parties have fundamentally different philosophies and attitudes toward public lands. Republicans and their supporters want to exploit those lands for private financial gain, not preserve or conserve them.
They didn’t assert she spiked the trees. (If you don’t know what tree spiking is, find out here.) Other people went to jail for that. Their rap against her is that she sent a letter to the Forest Service warning the trees were spiked. She says she only retyped it and forwarded it, and did so to keep anyone from getting hurt. Although charged in the case, she was granted immunity and testified against the tree spikers. (Read about that here.)
Her former boss, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), called the Republicans’ attacks “character assassination,” and says she “did nothing wrong.” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called their accusations cheap shots.
Tree spiking is dangerous and illegal, and if that’s their reason, it’s not a good one, because she wasn’t a party to it, cooperated with authorities, and helped send the perpetrators to jail. But in all probability, the real reason they don’t like her is because she defends the environment and protects public lands.