Biden designates two new national monuments

Biden designates two new national monuments
Biden designates two new national monuments

In an announcement postponed by the Los Angeles wildfires, President Joe Biden 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 where he'd originally planned to do so with a speech in California's Eastern Coachella Valley.

The president landed in California on January 6 but made it as far as Los Angeles before high winds — which 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 2,400-square-kilometer Chuckwalla site, and roughly 800 square kilometers near the California-Oregon border.

The protected area encompasses natural wonders, including the Painted Canyon of Mecca Hills and Alligator Rock, and is home to 50-plus rare species of plants and animals like the desert bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard, which the monument is named for, the White House said in a statement.

At the event, Biden talked about taking his children to national monuments around the country yearly when they were young to "witness the majesty, the beauty."

The monuments becoming realities honor past tribal requests.