Tom Cotton Torches Biden’s Ecoterrorist Nominee: Babies Are ‘Precious Gift from God,’ Not ‘Environmental Hazard’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Monday denounced Tracy Stone-Manning, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), over her controversial master’s thesis, which advocated for the creation of population control propaganda for environmental reasons.

Cotton made specific mention of one of the proposed population control advertisements Stone-Manning created in which a small child is depicted under a caption reading, “Can you find the environmental hazard in his photo?”

The Arkansas Republican wrote, “Biden’s BLM nominee thinks a ‘cute baby’ is actually an ‘environmental hazard.’ What is wrong with these people? Every baby is a precious gift from God”:

Stone-Manning’s 1992 thesis, titled Into the heart of the beast | A case for environmental advertising, contained a series of advertisements focused on America’s “problem” of “overpopulation” and her opposition to allowing livestock grazing on public lands.

The nominee wrote the thesis while she was a graduate student at the University of Montana in Missoula, and Breitbart News learned in July that Stone-Manning had called the university and requested it limit access to the thesis to school affiliates only.

One advertisement in the now-restricted thesis stated, “When we have children, the planet feels it more. Do the truly smart thing. Stop at one or two kids,” while another read, “Stop at two. It could be the best thing you do for the planet.” Cotton shared a photo of the latter advertisement.

Missoula was a hub for environmental activism in the 1980s and 1990s, and while Stone-Manning was in school there, she was also a member of the environmental extremist group Earth First!, some members of which committed acts of ecoterrorism, per the FBI’s definition.

Stone-Manning’s involvement in one particular instance of ecoterrorism, a 1989 tree spiking crime, has resulted in all Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee rejecting her nomination, along with several other Republican senators, including Cotton.

Cotton wrote earlier in July, “Every Democratic candidate in the country should answer a simple question: Should a tree-spiking ecoterrorist run the Bureau of Land Management”:

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 10–10 along party lines on Stone-Manning last week. The deadlocked vote meant the committee was unable to recommend Stone-Manning’s nomination; however, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), through a procedural motion, can hold a vote to discharge the nomination out of the committee so that the full Senate can consider it.

Committee ranking member Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) has said all 49 of his Republican colleagues are united in opposing Stone-Manning’s nomination. Because the upper chamber is split 50–50, all 50 Democrats would therefore need to vote to confirm Stone-Manning, and Vice President Kamala Harris would then be responsible for casting the tiebreaking vote.

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.