Biden announces 2 new national monuments in California after wildfires scuttled previous event
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In an announcement postponed by the Los Angeles wildfires, President Joe Biden on Tuesday designated two sites in California as national monuments that will honor Native American tribes while shielding picturesque mountains and deserts from mining and energy development.
Biden made the designations at an event at the White House, a week after — and on the other side of the country from — how he'd originally planned to do so, with a speech in California's Eastern Coachella Valley. The president landed in California on Jan. 6, but made it as far as Los Angeles before high winds — that helped spark the Los Angeles blazes — forced officials to scrap the event. It was a stark reminder that, even as Biden uses the last days of his administration to attempt to safeguard the environment, climate change is already helping to exacerbate natural disasters.
Instead, Biden spoke next to screens featuring towering peaks, desert vistas and an array of plant and animal life. “I was hoping we were going to do this in place," the president said. "This is as close as we could get.". Biden formally created the Chuckwalla National Monument, in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, in Northern California.
The declarations bar oil and natural gas drilling, as well as mining and other exploration and production initiatives, on the 624,000-acre (2,400-square-kilometer) Chuckwalla site, and roughly 225,000 acres (800 square kilometers) near the California-Oregon border.
