President Joe Biden to create national monument in Riverside County

Shoring up his environmental legacy before leaving office, President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Jan. 7, is visiting California’s eastern Coachella Valley to call attention to more than 600,000 acres he’s preserving by establishing a new national monument.

Located south of Joshua Tree National Park, Chuckwalla National Monument will be the fifth-largest in the mainland U.S., Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Indio, whose district includes the monument, said in a Monday, Jan. 6, phone interview.

RELATED: President Joe Biden to visit eastern Riverside County, could announce new national monument

Since taking office in 2021, Biden has used his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create six new monuments and expand four others, The Washington Post reported. Biden is traveling to the eastern Riverside County desert for an early afternoon announcement.

By establishing Chuckwalla and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, Biden will have protected more public lands than any president in a single term with the exception of Jimmy Carter, according to the Post.

Ruiz, a physician, said the monument will be an asset to local tourism and public health by promoting hiking and other opportunities for physical exercise.

Through talks involving energy and utility companies, the monument also strikes a balance between conservation and renewable energy development, Ruiz said.

“This is a unique model that shows that you can have conservation and renewable energy expansion at the same time,” the congressmember said.

Ruiz, who grew up in Coachella, said the land preserved by the monument has special meaning to him as a place where he went to pray and reflect on major life decisions, such as going to medical school and proposing to his wife.

That stands in contrast to President-elect Donald Trump, who supports opening public lands for energy development. In his first term, Trump shrank two national monuments in Utah.

Ruiz said he’s confident the monument’s boundaries will stand because Chuckwalla “falls within the accordance” of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, a roadmap for energy development and conservation covering 10.8 million acres in California.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived at Los Angeles International Airport aboard Air Force One at 9:32 p.m. Monday from New Orleans, where they met with “families and community members impacted” by the New Year’s terror attack on Bourbon Street that left 15 people dead and dozens more injured, according to the White House. Also on Monday, the president moved to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters.

He said he is using authority under the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect offshore areas along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from future oil and natural gas leasing.

Biden’s orders would not affect large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs, but it would protect coastlines along California, Florida and other states from future drilling. Trump on Monday declared that, after he’s inaugurated Monday, Jan. 20, Biden’s drilling ban will “be changed on day one.”

Establishing Chuckwalla “is another major victory for safeguarding California’s public lands for generations to come,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, said in a news release.

“This historic announcement accelerates our state’s crucial efforts to fight the climate crisis, protect our iconic wildlife, preserve sacred tribal sites, and promote clean energy, while expanding equitable access to nature for millions of Californians.”

Named for the lizard found in the Sonoran and Mojave Desert and northwestern Mexico, Chuckwalla will protect almost 700,000 acres in eastern Riverside County and Imperial County from drilling, mining, solar energy development and other industrial activity.

It joins other national monuments created in the past decade to preserve the Southern California desert and mountains. In 2016, President Barack Obama established the 154,000-acre Sand to Snow National Monument and the 1.6 million-acre Mojave Trails National Monument in San Bernardino County.

The monument area includes the Bradshaw Trail near Riverside County, a trade route used by 19th Century gold prospectors and “an even more ancient Native American trade route that crosses the region connecting one spring to another spring,” Ryan Henson of the California Wilderness Coalition said in 2022.

Gen. George Patton used the area in the early 1940s to train World War II soldiers in the harsh realities of desert combat. Tank tracks, abandoned camps and training areas can still be seen today, Henson said.

Bighorn sheep, golden eagles, desert tortoises and native plants live in the monument area, which also includes land considered sacred by a number of Native American tribes.

Biden’s expected move will follow lobbying by Southern California members of Congress, environmentalists and leaders of local Native American tribes. Last year, at least two dozen members of the California congressional delegation, including Ruiz, Padilla and Sen. Laphonza Butler, called for Biden to preserve Chuckwalla.

“CalWild is extremely pleased that the Biden administration has heeded the call of six Tribal nations, hundreds of local small businesses, elected officials, historical societies, veterans, clergy, and other diverse interests to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument,” Linda Castro, California Wilderness Coalition assistant policy director, said in a news release.

The monument has faced pushback from the city of Blythe near the Arizona border as well as energy interests, who fear it could shut off land for clean energy development.

Tuesday will mark Biden’s first visit as president to Riverside County, though the first lady Jill Biden spoke at a political fundraiser in Rancho Mirage in March. Trump held a campaign rally just outside Coachella in October.

The visit comes a day after Congress certified the 2024 presidential election results sealing Trump’s return to the White House. Biden leaves office Monday, Jan. 20.

The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.