Stone-Manning: "We don't manage culture, we manage landscape outcomes."

In 2002 Tracy Stone-Manning lectured on the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act or NREPA at the University of Montana where she earned her Masters of Science in Environmental Studies. In 2007 she became an aide to Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) then ran the state’s Department of Environmental Quality and in 2014 she became chief of staff for Montana Governor Steve Bullock. As Director of the Clark Fork Coalition she guided dam removal and river cleanup and has been co-chair of Missoula's Open Space, Rivers and Farmland. 

Today, Stone-Manning is Director of the Bureau of Land Management within the Department of Interior after calling nearly every Trump era ruling "illegal." Herr Trump's first Interior secretary blamed wildfires in the West on those he called “radical environmentalists” despite most acres burned in 2021 on private ranch land in Republican counties. On the final day of Trump’s presidency his last Interior secretary even restored a grazing permit to the Hammond Ranch whose prescriptive burn escaped onto federal land. 

Only a tiny fraction of public lands offered by the Trump Organization to the extractive industries were even leased yet Republicans see the Biden White House as hostile to their causes especially after the Hammonds' grazing permits were again rescinded.

Director Stone-Manning recently spoke to David McCumber with Lee Newspapers of Montana.

"The other day I was standing next to a BLM guy at an oil rig outside Farmington in New Mexico. He was an enforcement guy, not law enforcement but on the regulatory side. He said to me, 'Tracy, the day before you were confirmed, everybody above me in the chain of command was in an acting position.' We have a huge job ahead of us in stabilizing and growing this organization. Again, people are hungry for that and excited that it is happening." Q. What about the American Prairie Reserve and the idea of a buffalo commons along the Missouri? What is BLM going to do to enable or inhibit that vision? A. I think you know the request is pending with the state BLM office in Montana on livestock leases and enabling the Prairie Reserve to run bison with its leases. We expect that decision early in the year. Our job is to manage for the health of landscape and implement the law. We’re certainly aware of the sensitivities of that cultural question. But that’s what it is, a cultural question. We don't manage culture, we manage landscape outcomes." [Montana's Tracy Stone-Manning: BLM director has lots of acres and a big to-do list]

That Republican welfare ranchers are angry about rewilding means it's the right thing to do. 

Just 3 percent of the Earth's surface remains untouched by human development and a sixth mass extinction is underway. Putting the country on the path of protecting at least 30 percent of its land and 30 percent of its ocean areas by 2030 (30x30) is imperative to preserving public lands. Moving the US Forest Service from the US Department of Agriculture into the Department of Interior, even merging the Forest Service and BLM would be just one step toward rewilding the West.

But utilities are not your friends so how is generating electricity on BLM lands for greedy corporations good for America?

Public land in southern New Mexico was offered for developing solar power by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of a multi-state initiative intended to build utility-scale installations in the American West. In total, the BLM called for proposals for such developments on 90,000 acres of federal public land in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada – touting the call as the largest solar energy solicitation in the agency’s history. BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said the project announced Dec. 20 was intended to expand solar power production in the U.S. and follow the priorities of the federal administration to combat pollution through renewable energy. Earlier this year during the 2021 Legislative Session, New Mexico state lawmakers passed, and [Governor] Lujan Grisham signed into law the Community Solar Act, requiring the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to adopt a rulemaking that would create a community solar program. The purpose of the program was to allow low-income or rental residents, who either cannot afford or are unable to install rooftop panels, to still have access to solar energy and energy credits associated with solar energy added to the power grid. [Feds seek proposals for 29,000 acres in southern New Mexico for solar power, grow industry]

Hydraulic fracturing can waste up to 16 million gallons of water per well so here in New Mexico that’s often too high a price to pay not to keep fossil fuels in the ground. In the Second Congressional District alone the oil and gas industry left hundreds of orphan wells but because New Mexico is flush with cash operators just walk away from them leaving the state and feds to do the work to cap them. The BLM wants to hold the industry accountable.

As it moves personnel and operations back to DC from Colorado the BLM wants to sell some land the law enforcement industry has contaminated with lead to a local community college.

ip photo: the Kewa Pueblo has adopted some more BLM mustangs so I filled the water tank at the casita hoping to capture some images in the trail cam!

Mark your calendar....On January 6, the BLM will host a roundtable-style webinar focused on the new program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that provides $250 million to identify and remediate orphaned wells on federal lands. More: https://t.co/Vum8itfpn1. pic.twitter.com/jBnaiAGvxr

— Bureau of Land Management - National (@BLMNational) January 4, 2022