President Joe Biden’s plan to create two new national monuments in California drew criticism from a leading Republican on Tuesday, raising the question of whether the new protections will survive the forthcoming Trump administration.
The White House said Biden will designate the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument at an event in Southern California on Tuesday afternoon, securing protection for a sweeping desert ecosystem in the Chuckwalla Valley of Southern California and a forested area in the state’s northern mountains shaped by historic volcanoes. Both monuments come after years of advocacy from Native American tribes and together total 848,000 acres.
The moves add to the Biden administration’s goal of conserving 30 percent of American lands and waters by 2030. The president has acted to conserve roughly 670 million acres through various measures since 2021, the White House said.
But House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), who has long criticized Democratic expansions of public land using the Antiquities Act of 1906, slammed Biden’s new monuments Tuesday and vowed to roll back Biden-era policies.
