President Biden on Thursday nominated longtime environmental advocate Tracy Stone-Manning to head the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department division that oversees about a quarter-billion acres of federal lands in Western states. BLM also manages drilling and mining rights, animal grazing, and recreational activities on those lands.
Stone-Manning, 55, has worked at the National Wildlife Federation since 2015, and before that she led Montana's Department of Environmental Quality and worked as chief of staff to former Gov. Steve Bullock (D) and an aide to Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Tester said in a statement that Stone-Manning is "a tireless public lands champion with a lifetime of experience," while Montana's other senator, Steve Daines (R), said he would be "digging through and looking at her record and history" on environmental and energy issues.
BLM never had a Senate-confirmed director under former President Donald Trump, who cycled through "a string of acting directors to execute a loosening of restrictions on industry," The Associated Press reports. "Chief among them was conservative lawyer William Perry Pendley, who before he took the position advocated for selling off federal lands." After Pendley stayed in the job for more than a year without a Senate hearing, Bullock — with Stone-Manning's support — sued, and a federal judge ordered Pendley removed.
Montana Petroleum Association director Alan Olson said Stone-Manning, who he served on a climate council with, is highly intelligent, "left of center" but not extreme, and receptive to opposing arguments, but she should expect from Republicans the same treatment Democrats afforded Trump's appointees. "Tracy went after Pendley," he told AP. "She can expect the same."