President Biden to establish two new national monuments in California
By Ella Nilsen, CNN
(CNN) — President Joe Biden will declare two new national monuments in California on Tuesday in what will be one of his final, legacy-cementing actions to protect American land and water before he cedes the White House to President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden will establish the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, near the Oregon border.
Biden has created or expanded 12 national monuments while president and restored three others. Along with the action he took Monday to ban offshore oil drilling in 625 million acres of ocean, Biden has federally protected 674 million acres, or 1,053,125 square miles — an area of land and ocean nearly four times the size of Texas, the country’s second-largest state.
The Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California will encompass around 644,000 acres on Joshua Tree’s southern border, stretching to the Colorado River in southern California. By designating the new monument, Biden will have created the largest corridor of protected land in the continental US, spanning approximately 600 miles, according to the White House, from southeast Utah to Southern California.
“The stunning canyons and winding paths of the Chuckwalla National Monument represent a true unmatched beauty,” Interior Sec. Deb Haaland said in a statement. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”
The Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California will comprise more than 220,000 acres of the Medicine Lake Highlands, sitting close to Mount Shasta and preserving a key watershed and plants native to the region.
The monument will encompass the massive and dormant Medicine Lake Volcano, and the highland’s landscape is dotted with remnants of past eruptions – including lava tubes and volcanic craters.
Both monument areas are sacred to several Native tribes that have been actively pushing the administration to protect the land from energy development. The designation will prohibit fossil fuel drilling and mining, and the area has been deemed not suitable for solar energy development, according to the Interior Department.
Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said the designations for both areas were “another major victory for safeguarding California’s public lands for generations to come,” and noted nearly 1 million acres of public land has been conserved in the state.
Chuckwalla, which gets its name from the Chuckwalla lizard species that lives there, is part of ancient and sacred land for the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe. The Quechan hold sacred Avi Kwa Ame, also known as Spirit Mountain, which Biden declared a national monument in 2022 – saying it is the origin of their ancestors, who then migrated through the Chuckwalla desert.
“The essence of who we are lies in the landscapes of Chuckwalla and Avi Kwa Ame,” the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. “Every trail, every living being, and every story in these places is connected to a rich history and heritage that runs in our DNA.”
President-elect Donald Trump shrunk the size of two national monuments in Utah during his first term and signed a public lands bill from Congress that approved five new national monuments.
The-CNN-Wire
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