Stone-Manning in 2021. Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
The Bureau of Land Management is one of the agencies with the most at stake in the 2024 election.
Why it matters: BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning's appearance in the Senate on Thursday underscored how the agency could make a 180-degree turn should Donald Trump win the election, judging from the questions Republican senators asked.
Driving the news: The ENR hearing offered tea leaves for the BLM rulemakings that would be in for the quickest overhaul.
- Top of the pile is the public lands rule (effective as of this week), which gives conservation equal weight with mining and energy on bureau lands.
- Republicans also zeroed in on the agency's decision last month to end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half of U.S. coal.
- And they've already been pressuring the agency on its move to hike the minimum bonds oil and gas companies have to pay before they drill on public lands to cover cleanup costs.
What they're saying: Republicans were furious at this hearing, as they rehashed allegations about Stone-Manning's involvement in a 1980s tree spiking incident and described her tenure at the agency in harsh terms.
- "The last three and a half years have been a disgrace," said Sen. Jim Risch.
- Sen. Josh Hawley accused her of lying to the committee about the legal circumstances surrounding the incident. Stone-Manning denied Hawley's accusation.
The other side: Sen. Martin Heinrich said Republican attacks on the public lands rule were "a lot of hyperbole."
- The policy change will help BLM make "wise decisions across our development portfolio," Stone-Manning said.
Zoom in: Republicans likely won't be able to block BLM's most contentious rules via approps riders, but they could pose a real threat to the agency's budget in another austere year for the Interior-environment bill.
- BLM already got an $81 million haircut in fiscal 2024.
- Lisa Murkowski, the Senate's top GOP Interior appropriator, said Congress should "clean house" and "cut BLM's budget, at least until the agency realizes that they've got to follow federal law."
That's a threat Murkowski's made multiple times now, but she piled on Thursday by accusing Interior of stonewalling her on its decision to suspend permits for the Ambler mining road.
- She said Interior never followed up on her request for the legal justification of the decision after she asked Interior Secretary Deb Haaland about it in May.
- Stone-Manning simply replied that the agency would provide that in the forthcoming final record of decision.
