President Biden will dedicate two new national monuments protecting tribal lands in California on Tuesday, two sources with knowledge confirmed to The Hill.
Biden will designate the Chuckwalla National Monument in southern California’s Colorado Desert near Joshua Tree National Park, as well as a second site, the Sáttítla National Monument, in the north of the state near the Oregon border.
The sources were unable to confirm the monuments’ exact acreage, but a report from The Washington Post on Thursday said the president plans to designate 644,000 acres for the Chuckwalla monument and 200,000 for Sáttítla.
Reached for comment, a White House spokesperson did not confirm nor deny the plans, but Biden is set to visit California’s Eastern Coachella Valley, near the proposed Chuckwalla site, on Tuesday, according to the president’s official schedule. One of the sources told The Hill Biden likely will designate both monuments at the event.
The establishment of the national monument sites will restrict mining and solar energy development on the affected areas.
The designation will come after intense lobbying from local tribal groups and members of California’s congressional delegation. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), former Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) co-sponsored bicameral legislation in 2024 to create the Chuckwalla monument while also calling on Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate it.
“Our proposal reflects the input of tribal leaders who have fought for years to protect these sacred landscapes, and from our partners in the energy industry who worked with us to carefully craft the Monument’s boundaries to ensure we can meet our shared clean energy goals,” Padilla said in April.
President-elect Trump, whose first full day in office will come exactly two weeks after Biden is set to make the designation, previously rolled back national monument protections established under Democratic administrations in his first term as president.
The move included reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Biden restored the original boundaries of both monuments in 2021.
