President Biden on Tuesday established two recent national monuments in Californiathe newest in a series of major environmental initiatives affecting the Golden State as his presidency involves a detailed.
Biden designated Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California, south of Joshua Tree National Park, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California, east of Mount Shasta near the Oregon border.
Chuckwalla consists of 624,000 acres of federal land, most of which is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. There, the Colorado and Mojave deserts mix to form a combination of scenic mountains and canyons, home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and chuckwalla lizards. Sáttítla is a 224,000-acre national forest within the distant landscapes of Siskiyou and Modoc counties, a landscape teeming with bald eagles, black bears and salmon. Together, the 2 areas are larger than Yosemite National Park.
Both sites are sacred to local tribes who pushed for monument status, allowing logging, mining and other extractive uses reminiscent of mining. B. restricts energy production.
“The breathtaking canyons and winding trails of Chuckwalla National Monument represent truly unparalleled beauty,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the primary Native American to function Cabinet secretary. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”
The Sáttítla Monument, which incorporates portions of the Shasta-Trinity, Modoc and Klamath National Forests, was a top priority for the Pit River Tribe, situated in Burney, northeast of Redding.
“For generations, my people have fought to protect Sáttítla, and today we celebrate the voices of our ancestors being heard,” said Yatch Bamford, Chairman of the Pit River Nation.
However, not everyone agrees with the brand new monuments.
Last summer, when the thought of a Sáttítla monument first gained traction, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Yuba City, whose district includes the realm, said he opposed it since the designation would mean more regulations and restrictions on the land What has already happened was a seek for geothermal developments.
“They just want to lock everything down so that hardly anyone can access it,” LaMalfa told Redding Record Searchlight in July. “These are not the friends of rural California.”
Town leaders in Blythe, a town of 18,000 near the Chuckwalla Monument area, opposed it because they feared it will limit large-scale solar energy development.
But on Tuesday, a significant California solar industry organization said the boundaries appeared to have been drawn in a way that will don’t have any impact on transmission lines or solar plans.
“Solar development is taboo in much of the desert,” said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association in Sacramento. “I understand your concern. But at the moment we do not share this concern. We do not believe the monument will hinder solar development.”
Biden was scheduled to go to Gov. Gavin Newsom in Thermal within the Coachella Valley on Tuesday afternoon and provides a speech in regards to the monuments. But resulting from dangerously strong winds in the realm, his flight was canceled and White House officials said a ceremony could be held in Washington DC next week
Tuesday's moves were the newest in a wave of environmental actions Biden has taken on the request of California leaders before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
On Monday, Biden closed 625 million acres of federal marine waters to recent offshore oil and natural gas drilling, including all federal waters off California, Oregon and Washington, in addition to your complete Atlantic Coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
In November, he closed the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary and banned oil drilling along 156 miles of coastline along San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. It was the most important recent national marine sanctuary in California in 30 years, since President George H. W. Bush established the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.
Last Friday, the Biden administration's Environmental Protection Agency gave California permission to implement its zero-emissions rules for lawn mowers and leaf blowers and to permit tougher recent emissions rules for refrigerated trucks and off-road vehicles reminiscent of mining trucks and bulldozers. The decisions, referred to as waivers, give California the authority to set rules under the Clean Air Act which might be more expansive than federal standards.
In December, the EPA granted California a waiver from the state's landmark pollution rules for cars and trucks, which ban the sale of recent gasoline-powered passenger vehicles reminiscent of cars, pickup trucks and minivans by 2035.
Trump is predicted to attempt to roll back the EPA exemptions, which can likely end in a lengthy court battle. In a radio interview on Monday, he said he would also reverse Biden's ban on offshore oil drilling. However, in accordance with a 2019 court ruling, this requires an act from Congress, where Republicans have a really narrow majority of 219-215 within the House of Representatives and will not have the mandatory votes.
Only Congress can create recent national parks. But under the Antiquities Act of 1906, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to curb looting and theft of Native American pottery and artifacts in New Mexico and other areas, presidents can establish national monuments on existing federal lands by proclamation without congressional approval.
Monument designation often brings with it recent conservation regulations that restrict mining, oil exploration, or other development. Almost every president has used the law to create monuments, which in lots of cases Congress eventually converted into national parks.
Roosevelt used it to put aside the Grand Canyon and in addition Pinnacles in San Benito County; Herbert Hoover used it to guard Arches, Utah, and Death Valley, California; Bill Clinton decommissioned Sequoia National Monument and George W. Bush used it to guard vast areas of the distant Pacific Ocean, including the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Trench.
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