Senate approves Biden land-agency pick over GOP opposition

By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bitterly divided Senate has approved President Joe Biden’s choice to oversee vast government-owned lands in the West, despite Republican objections that she is an “eco-terrorist.” Tracy Stone-Manning, Biden’s choice to lead the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, was approved, 50-45. Republicans sharply criticized her over links to a 1989 environmental sabotage case. Democrats defended Stone-Manning, noting she was never charged with a crime and in fact testified against two men who were convicted of spiking trees to sabotage a timber sale in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest.