A spokesperson for Manchin told The Hill he will vote yes on the confirmation of Tracy Stone-Manning, whose nomination would likely have been doomed without the West Virginia Democrat’s backing.
In the 1990s, Stone-Manning testified that she had sent a letter given to her by another activist threatening tree-spiking, in which trees intended for logging are spiked with metal rods. The tactic is intended to create potential damage to logging equipment but can lead to human injury as well.
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She told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Manchin chairs, that she had “no involvement in the spiking of trees.” In 1993 she testified that she delivered the letter “because I wanted people to know that those trees were spiked. I didn’t want anybody getting hurt as a result of trees being spiked.”