President Joe Biden plans to create two new national monuments in California in the coming days, according to two people briefed on the announcement, aiming to cement his environmental legacy before President-elect
Donald Trump takes office.
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The two individuals spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.
Biden will sign a proclamation establishing the roughly 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park, the people said. The move would bar drilling, mining, solar-energy farms and other industrial activity in the area. It also would honor the wishes of several Native American tribes that have revered the landscape for thousands of years, and would expand local Latino communities’ access to outdoor recreation areas.
The president also will sign a proclamation creating the roughly 200,000-acre Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California near the Oregon border, the people said. The Pit River Tribe has spearheaded the campaign to protect that area from energy development.
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The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden has already used his executive authority under
the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create
six new national monuments and expand four others. After signing the proclamations, he will have protected more public lands than any other president in a single term, with the exception of
Jimmy Carter.
Trump, in contrast,
significantly shrank two national monuments in Utah during his first term. He slashed more than 1.9 million acres in total from the
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments — known for their stunning desert vistas and wealth of Native American artifacts.
Three Democratic lawmakers from California — Rep. Raul Ruiz and Sens. Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler — have introduced legislation to create the Chuckwalla National Monument. Padilla has also championed a bill to protect Sáttítla.
But neither measure has advanced in the divided Congress. The Antiquities Act authorizes the president to protect lands and waters for the benefit of all Americans without congressional approval.
‘A hugely significant milestone’
The Chuckwalla National Monument will be named after the chuckwalla lizards that roam the junction of the Mojave, Sonoran and Colorado deserts. The region is also home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and iconic bird species such as golden eagles and greater roadrunners.
Chuckwalla would be immediately southeast of Joshua Tree National Park, which ranked as the
ninth most-visited national park in 2023, attracting more than 3.2 million people that year, according to the National Park Service.
The area is part of the ancestral homelands of several Indigenous peoples, including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mohave, Quechan and Serrano tribes. The Quechan people say their ancestors emerged from a sacred mountain in Nevada —
Avi Kwa Ame, which Biden designated as a monument in 2022 — and then migrated through this stretch of desert, dropping pottery shards as trail markers and leaving petroglyphs as guidance for future generations.
“If someone went and bulldozed the Vatican, that would be the equivalent of desecrating this desert for us,” said Donald Medart, a council member of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe.
For the Cahuilla people, the reddish hue of the rocks and mountains comes from the blood of Mukat, the Cahuilla creator god who was exiled to this area. They say that when Mukat died, his remains became vegetation to sustain his people, including mesquite trees whose beans can be cooked or ground into flour.
A monument designation “would be a hugely significant milestone,” said Thomas Tortez Jr., tribal council chairman of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. “It’s the best way that we can protect our original homelands.”
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