Biden Moves To Seal Environmental Legacy With Major Conservation Announcement
Chris D'Angelo, Roque Planas
Tue, January 7, 2025
Biden Moves To Seal Environmental Legacy With Major Conservation Announcement
President Joe Biden on Tuesday will travel to California to designate a pair of new national monuments, safeguarding nearly 850,000 acres of ecologically and culturally significant land in the Golden State from new drilling, mining and other development.
The new designations are part of the outgoing administration’s eleventh-hour push to protect sensitive lands and waters before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House later this month. Trump has a record of chipping away at protected landscapes and is pledging to prioritize fossil fuel drilling and other industrial development across the country.
Chuckwalla National Monument will span more than 624,000 acres of desert south of Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The area is home to rugged mountain ranges and dozens of rare species, including the desert bighorn sheep and the chuckwalla lizard. The Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano nations all have ancestral ties to the newly protected lands.
The monument will connect to a series of other federally protected lands running along the Colorado River from the Mojave Desert in California to the town of Moab, Utah.
The White House described the “Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor,” which also includes Grand Canyon National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as the largest contiguous stretch of federally protected lands in the Lower 48, running a length of 600 miles and encompassing nearly 18 million acres.
“The stunning canyons and winding paths of the Chuckwalla National Monument represent a true unmatched beauty,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “President Biden’s action today will protect important spiritual and cultural values tied to the land and wildlife.”
Yellow brittlebush flowers bloom near Red Canyon in the then-proposed Chuckwalla Mountains National Monument on April 20, 2024, near Chiriaco Summit, California. The monument is one of two that Biden is designating in California. David McNew via Getty Images
Biden will also designate Sáttítla Highlands National Monument — a 224,000-acre swath of lands managed by the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath National Forests in Northern California. The monument includes Medicine Lake, a dormant volcano that now serves as a major source of fresh water, feeding a network of springs whose total volume exceeds the combined capacityof California’s 200 largest manmade lakes, according to Hatch magazine.
While the two new monuments will boost Biden’s conservation legacy — he has protected more than 670 million acres of lands and waters, more than any president in history, according to the White House — they are likely to become targets of the incoming Trump administration.
During his first term, Trump turned national monuments and the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives presidents broad authority to create protected sites on existing federal lands, into political lightning rods. He famously dismantled the boundaries of two large national monuments in Utah — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — in what was the largest rollback of national monuments in U.S. history, only to have Biden restore them to their original boundaries.
Trump and other Republicans have accused recent administrations of abusing the nearly century-old Antiquities Act to “lock up” federal acres, conveniently ignoring that many early monument designations spanned hundreds of thousands of acres. Project 2025, the 920-page policy blueprint that GOP operatives created to guide a second Trump term, explicitly calls for repealing the 1906 law.
The new monuments will not impact existing rights, instead allowing for some resource exploitation to continue, including clean energy initiatives and efforts to reduce flammable vegetation to mitigate wildfires.
Upon signing the proclamations creating Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands, Biden will have created, expanded or restored a total of 15 national monuments, boosting protections for nearly 9 million federal acres.
Tuesday’s action comes a day after Biden permanently banned oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of federal waters, including the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts
Biden will honor tribal requests by designating 2 new national monuments in California
ZEKE MILLER, JAIMIE DING and COLLEEN LONG
Mon, January 6, 2025
President Joe Biden speaks at a reception for new Democratic members of Congress in the State Dining Room of the White House, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is signing a proclamation to establish two new national monuments in California, in part to honor two tribes, a person familiar with the decision said Monday.
The proclamation will create the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans that were to be announced Tuesday in California.
The declaration bars drilling and mining and other development on the 600,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) area in Southern California and roughly 200,000 acres (800 square kilometers) in Northern California.
The establishment of new monuments were first reported in The Washington Post. Biden, who has two weeks left in office, is in New Orleans on Monday meeting with the families of the victims in the New Year's attack in the French Quarter and was heading to California later Monday.
The flurry of activity has been in line with the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative launched in 2021, aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change.
The Pit River Tribe has worked to get the federal government to designate the Sáttítla National Monument. A number of Native American tribes and environmental groups began pushing Biden to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument, named after the large desert lizard, at the start of 2023.
The area would protect public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park, spanning the Coachella Valley region in the west to near the Colorado River.
Advocates say the monument will protect a tribal cultural landscape, ensure access to nature for local residents and preserve military history sites. The California Legislature passed a resolution in August 2024 to urge Biden to establish the Chuckwalla National Monument and another National Park Service-managed national monument adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, as well as the Kw’tsán National Monument, which would border Mexico and Arizona.
Tribal leaders have also called for the Chuckwalla monument to honor tribal sovereignty to include local tribes as co-stewards, following in the footsteps of a recent wave of monuments such as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is overseen in conjunction with five tribal nations.
“The protection of the Chuckwalla National Monument brings the Quechan people an overwhelming sense of peace and joy," the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. “Tribes being reunited as stewards of this landscape is only the beginning of much-needed healing and restoration, and we are eager to fully rebuild our relationship to this place.”
In May, the Biden administration expanded two national monuments in California — the San Gabriel Mountains in the south and Berryessa Snow Mountain in the north. In October, Biden designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary along the coast of central California, which will include input from the local Chumash tribes in how the area is preserved.
Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California also became the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, which is conveying the land to the tribe.
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Ding contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Long reported from New Orleans.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is signing a proclamation to establish two new national monuments in California, in part to honor two tribes, a person familiar with the decision said Monday.
The proclamation will create the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans that were to be announced Tuesday in California.
The declaration bars drilling and mining and other development on the 600,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) area in Southern California and roughly 200,000 acres (800 square kilometers) in Northern California.
The establishment of new monuments were first reported in The Washington Post. Biden, who has two weeks left in office, is in New Orleans on Monday meeting with the families of the victims in the New Year's attack in the French Quarter and was heading to California later Monday.
The flurry of activity has been in line with the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative launched in 2021, aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change.
The Pit River Tribe has worked to get the federal government to designate the Sáttítla National Monument. A number of Native American tribes and environmental groups began pushing Biden to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument, named after the large desert lizard, at the start of 2023.
The area would protect public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park, spanning the Coachella Valley region in the west to near the Colorado River.
Advocates say the monument will protect a tribal cultural landscape, ensure access to nature for local residents and preserve military history sites. The California Legislature passed a resolution in August 2024 to urge Biden to establish the Chuckwalla National Monument and another National Park Service-managed national monument adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park, as well as the Kw’tsán National Monument, which would border Mexico and Arizona.
Tribal leaders have also called for the Chuckwalla monument to honor tribal sovereignty to include local tribes as co-stewards, following in the footsteps of a recent wave of monuments such as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is overseen in conjunction with five tribal nations.
“The protection of the Chuckwalla National Monument brings the Quechan people an overwhelming sense of peace and joy," the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. “Tribes being reunited as stewards of this landscape is only the beginning of much-needed healing and restoration, and we are eager to fully rebuild our relationship to this place.”
In May, the Biden administration expanded two national monuments in California — the San Gabriel Mountains in the south and Berryessa Snow Mountain in the north. In October, Biden designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary along the coast of central California, which will include input from the local Chumash tribes in how the area is preserved.
Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California also became the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, which is conveying the land to the tribe.
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Ding contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Long reported from New Orleans.
Reuters
Tue, January 7, 2025
(Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday will create two new national monuments in California, solidifying his legacy as the U.S. leader who has conserved more lands and waters than any of his predecessors.
The designation of the Chuckwalla National Monument in the southern California desert and the Sattitla Highlands National Monument near the state's northern border comes a day after Biden protected nearly every U.S. coastline from offshore oil and gas development.
The moves are aligned with his goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Under federal law, presidents have the authority to create or alter national monuments in recognition of a site's cultural, historical or scientific importance, but a designation can be rescinded by a future president.
In 2021, Biden restored the boundaries of three national monuments that had been reduced in size by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, following their original designations as monuments by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
By contrast, national parks are created by acts of Congress, largely to protect outstanding scenic features or natural phenomena, giving them a much higher level of protection.
According to a White House statement, the Chuckwalla National Monument preserves more than 624,000 acres just south of Joshua Tree National Park. The area holds cultural and historical significance for tribes including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano. The monument will protect habitats for species including the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard, for which it is named, and will provide outdoor recreation opportunities for nearby poor communities.
The monument's creation seeks to strike a balance between conservation and clean energy development, another Biden priority. The White House said the Chuckwalla monument will allow the construction and expansion of electric transmission lines to transport clean energy to population centers in the West. Renewable energy projects will be able to be developed near or adjacent to the monument.
"The establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument demonstrates that we can balance conservation and drive toward a clean energy future that serves everyone," Laura Daniel-Davis, the Interior Department's acting deputy secretary, said in a statement.
The Chuckwalla monument will be managed by Interior's Bureau of Land Management. Its establishment creates a 600-mile corridor of protected lands from southwestern Utah to Chuckwalla, the White House said.
The Sattitla Highlands National Monument in northern California will preserve 224,000 acres across three national forests. The area is sacred to the Pit River and Modoc tribes.
A dormant volcano, known as Medicine Lake, creates a dramatic landscape of craters and lava tubes. Rainfall in the area is filtered through the volcanic rock, filling underground aquifers for Northern California communities.
Brandy McDaniels, a Pit River tribe member who has advocated for the creation of the monument, said her people have fought geothermal energy development in the area for decades, and welcomed lasting protection.
"As tribal people that are socio-economically suppressed, we are constantly faced with corporations that have endless resources to come and exploit and degrade our water resources and our land," McDaniels said.
The Sattitla monument will be managed by the U.S. Forest Service, a division of the Department of Agriculture.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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