News Brief
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland faced lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday as she advocated for an $18 billion budget increase for her department next year. The money would go towards advancing renewable energy projects, expanding wildland fire programs and boosting public safety on reservations.
But questions from senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee went far beyond the scope of her budget. They grilled Haaland on everything from endangered grizzly bears to her department’s review of oil and gas drilling.
Interior is mulling a ban on new oil and gas drilling on federal lands as well as upping royalty rates on fossil fuel projects. The review was supposed to be made public in early summer and Republicans voiced frustration that it was taking so long.
Outlook for This Week in the Nation’s Capital
Congress. The House and Senate are both in session this week. The Senate will continue confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees, and the House plans to vote on some appropriations bill as well as numerous other pieces of legislation from the Oversight and Reform, Natural Resources, and Veterans’ Affairs Committees. Hearings for the week include assessing the federal response to COVID-19, defending the electric grid against cyber attacks, enhancing voting rights, examining federal nutrition programs, discussing the role of controlled environment agriculture, and addressing NASA’s infrastructure needs. The House Armed Services Committee will also hold all of its subcommittee markups this week for the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act, but it will not hold its full committee markup until September.
Exclusive Co-Worker of Unabomber Victim: Biden Nominee Must Answer for Ecoterrorism That Inspired Ted Kaczynski
27 Jul 2021
In 1995, I was an employee of the California Forestry Association in Sacramento, California. On April 25, 1995, my co-worker Gilbert Murray opened a package addressed to William Dennison, the previous executive of the organization. The package contained a bomb sent by Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber.
Kaczynski’s bomb was designed to inflict maximum pain and suffering on anyone who might be near the package when it exploded, and that’s what happened to my co-worker that day when a domestic terrorist warped by an ecoterrorist ideology took his life.
27 Jul 2021
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland could not answer for the controversies surrounding Tracy Stone-Manning, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), when Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confronted Haaland about Stone-Manning during a hearing Tuesday.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) pressed the secretary, whose department houses the BLM, on several of Stone-Manning’s controversial stances, at one point asking specifically about Stone-Manning’s recent support for her husband’s article suggesting some homes built in wildfire-prone areas ought to burn.
Lee asked, “Were you aware of public statements that Ms. Stone-Manning had made only months before her nomination calling for homes built in forests to burn in forest fires?”
Stone-Manningâs confirmation as BLM director advances to Senate floor
50-49 tally sets up final vote this week
MTN News
and last updated 2021-07-27 19:49:26-04
HELENA â Montanan Tracy Stone-Manningâs nomination to head the U.S. Bureau of Land Management advanced to the Senate floor Tuesday on a partisan 50-49 vote, setting up a final vote on her confirmation later this week.
All 48 Senate Democrats and two Independents voted to âdischargeâ her nomination from the deadlocked Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and send it to the Senate floor for further action; 49 Republicans voted against her.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota did not vote. Vice President Kamala Harris had been ready to break a 50-50 tie in Stone-Manningâs favor, had it occurred.