Iron County resolution cites BLM nominee’s radicalism, anti-grazing stance

Iron County, Utah has had its share of affronts by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). From crackdowns on grazing to unfair treatment of ranchers to radicalism and thuggery in their own field offices, the long train of abuses in this southern Utah county by the BLM and other agencies goes back decades. Having enjoyed a measure of relief from the sheer oppressiveness of the federal lands agency for the past few years, the threat of an anti-grazing, ecoterrorist extremist taking the helm is disquieting, to say the least. The Iron County Commission has sent the following resolution to Biden. ~Ed

IRON COUNTY RESOLUTION 2021-4 

OPPOSING PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S NOMINATION OF TRACY STONE­ MANNING AS NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT AND URGING THE U.S. SENATE ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE AND FULL SENATE BODY TO REJECT THE NOMINATION

Whereas, President Joe Biden nominated Tracy Stone-Manning (Stone-Manning) to be National Director of the United States Bureau of Land Management;

Whereas, Stone-Manning’s past and recent conduct and statements give rise to grave concern that the BLM may be lead by someone with ties to radicalized eco-terroristic activity;

Whereas, Stone-Manning’s background and ties are so troubling even for a former BLM Director under President Obama, Robert Abbey, publicly called on President Biden to withdraw Stone-Manning’s nomination. Said Abbey, “As a 30-year BLM career employee, I don’t take her actions lightly nor should anyone else. If Stone-Manning participated in any aspect of planning, implementation or cover-up in the spiking of trees, then she should not be confirmed.”

Whereas, concerns over Stone-Manning’s nomination include:

• Her alleged links to a 1989 eco-terrorist plot to spike Idaho trees (jamming 8-10″ metal spikes into trees which tum into lethal projectiles when each tree is processed for logging);
• Her admitted editing, re-typing and sending a troubling anonymous letter as part of that plot, to the Forest Service (excerpts include, “The sales were marked so that no workers would be injured and so that you a-holes know that they are spiked;” and, “You bastards go in there anyway and a lot of people could get “);
• Her accepting legal immunity to keep from being prosecuted for that tree-spiking plot, in exchange for testifying against the plot’s co-conspirators who were convicted and went to prison;
• Her allegedly misleading the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (”the Committee”) on whether she was ever a target of the Federal criminal investigation into that tree-spiking plot, (ranking member Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wy. said publicly, “It’s clear that Stone-Manning was intentionally trying to deceive the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. She told the committee she had never been the subject of an investigation and yet complained about being investigated in the press;” and fifteen members of the Committee sent a letter to the President sharing that concern and urging withdrawal of the Stone­ Manning nomination);
• Her reputed, long standing outright opposition to livestock grazing on public lands;
• Her tweet last year (2020) in support of her husband’s 2018 Harper’s Magazine article that radically declared the U.S, Forest Service should let houses in and near forests bum as a type of “social contract,” and “perhaps the solution to houses in the interface is to let them bum,” and “perhaps the feds should commit themselves to refusing to send in any troops to any county that has not taken such measures;”
• Her support for a Montana housing development project followed by her allegedly receiving a favorable loan (6% interest when the going rate was 11%) from the developer of that project two years later;
• Her graduate thesis urging two-child-only population control to protect the environment (“..we must breed fewer consuming .”);
• Her devising related advertisements such as one pushing the two-child policy and calling a pictured “cute baby” “an environmental hazard.”
• Her association with 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s radical advocacy groups like Earth First who militantly opposed grazing and other multiple uses on public lands and expressed their views through extensive property damage and various violent attacks;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS 

1. Tracy Stone-Manning is unfit and disqualified to lead the BLM and National Director nor to hold any office of responsibility in the United States.

2. A National BLM Director should never be under a cloud of suspicion over alleged ties to ecoterrorism, never be on record urging destruction of human dwellings in a wildfire, never be widely suspected of misleading a Senate Committee when exercising its oversight role; never be be linked to drastic population control policies that hideously limit children and call a baby an environmental hazard, never be under a cloud for allegedly taking financial favors for advocating a position on an environmental matter, and never be a reputed wholesale opponent of public lands grazing when the BLM’s very creation was to manage the unreserved public domain as grazing districts and allotments, among other uses.

3. Iron County, Utah calls on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Senate body to reject the pending nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning for Bureau of Land Management Director, for the reasons stated above;

4. This is necessary to preserve the integrity and mission of the BLM;

5. This is necessary to uphold the faith and trust the BLM must have with State and County leaders and Americans in general.

6. Protecting public lands management from the blight of eco-terrorism, criminal conduct and the specter of China-style population control are at risk if the Senate do not reject the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning.

UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED and signed this 26^th day of July, 2021.

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IRON COUNTY, UTAH

Michael Bleak–Chairman

Paul Cozzens

Marilyn Wood

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