President Biden is expected to designate two new national monuments in California this week, which will bar roughly 850,000 acres of tribal lands from future development.
After signing the new orders, Biden will have shut down development on more public lands than any other president in history besides former President Jimmy Carter, according to the Washington Post.
The move would establish a 644,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument located in the southern part of the state near Joshua Tree National Park, sources familiar with the matter said. While no public plans about the new monument have been announced, sources have leaked details to the media and the president’s public schedule shows he will be traveling Tuesday to Southern California’s east Coachella Valley, site of the designated tribal land.
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In addition to Biden’s plans to designate a large swath of the Colorado Desert located in Southern California as a national monument, the president also plans to designate roughly 200,000-acres of land in Northern California, near the Oregon border, as a national monument. The move would establish the Sáttítla National Monument and would also bar any future energy development in that area.
While environmentalists, tribal groups and Democrat lawmakers have urged Biden to designate these two new national monuments, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., has argued that designating the roughly 200,000-acres of land in Northern California is unnecessary because it is already protected from development, according to local California news outlet, the Redding Record Searchlight. Additionally, he added, getting permits approved on forest service lands is already difficult and prohibiting them further could make it more difficult to fight wildfires in the area due to a scarcity of roads.
The new monuments will be designated by Biden via his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows presidents to bypass Congress when seeking to protect lands and water for the benefit of the nation. Since the start of his presidency, Biden has already used his executive authority under the act to establish eight new national monuments, while expanding four others, the Washington Post reported.
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President-elect Trump has vowed to unleash U.S. domestic energy dominance during his upcoming term. Meanwhile, in the final weeks and months ahead of Biden’s departure from the White House, his administration has made efforts to bolster its green energy priorities against any potential blowback from Trump.
Last month, the Biden administration unveiled a report detailing the negative public impact on increasing liquefied natural gas exports, a move that experts said could provide fodder for environmentalists seeking to challenge Trump’s efforts to increase U.S. energy production.
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Steve Milloy, a fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, said Biden’s latest national monuments designation could serve the same purpose. “While Trump can undo whatever Biden does, Biden is trying to create litigation traps for Trump that will discourage investors from projects on public lands,” he said.
On Monday, Biden also used his executive authority to ban new oil and gas drilling off nearly all U.S. coasts. “The decision to unilaterally block areas from future offshore oil and gas development is a strategic error, driven not by science or voter mandate, but by political motives,” the National Ocean Industries Association said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
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