Updated Democrats back Biden US lands pick assailed by Republicans BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A bitterly divided U.S. Senate panel deadlocked Thursday on President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee vast government-owned lands in the West, as Democrats united behind a nominee whose credibility was assailed by Republicans over her links to a 1989 environmental sabotage case. The 10-10 tie in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee sets up a floor vote on the nomination of Tracy Stone-Manning. It would take every Senate Republican plus at least one Democratic lawmaker to block her confirmation in the evenly divided chamber. At stake is the leadership of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees energy production, grazing, mining, recreation and other activities across almost a quarter-billion acres of public lands, primarily in the West.