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But Republican leaders based their opposition on his behavior during a tree planting incident in 1989, not his opposition to expanding oil and gas drilling.
As a graduate student in Montana, Ms. Stone-Manning, now 56, wrote and mailed a warning letter to the United States Forest Service about her plan to install metal spikes in trees in the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho. At the time, “planting trees” was a tactic used by some environmentalists to damage timber machinery. But it can also harm or even kill workers using this equipment.
Ms. Stone-Manning testified in this case, helping to convict the two people involved, and she described her decision to write the letter as a way to alert the authorities.
Republicans accused Ms. Stone-Manning of lying about her involvement in the incident and branded her an “eco-terrorist”.
“It’s hard to imagine a more disqualified candidate than Tracy Stone-Manning,” said Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican and senior member of the Senate’s energy and natural resources committee. “Every Senate Democrat will be responsible for his confirmation.”
On Thursday, the Democrats unanimously stood behind Ms. Stone-Manning. They recorded the tree-planting incident when he was in his 20s and argued that his role was to help the authorities. They described him as someone who spent the next decades building bridges between environmentalists, farmers, and fossil fuel interests.
“Someone who appreciates collaboration, someone who can listen, who can reason, who knows our public lands, who has been recreated on our public lands throughout his life,” said Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester. Ms. Stone-Manning is an aide and has known him for twenty years.
Most recently, Ms. Stone-Manning was a senior advisor on conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit conservation group. He also worked as an aide to Steve Bullock, the former Democratic Government of Montana, and served as the head of Montana’s environmental agency.
Emily Cochrane contributing reporting.
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