The Trump administration resolved the surprise and confusion over the weekend, issued and apparently rolled back. This implies that the president implies that the orders of his predecessors had created two popular national monuments in California.
The confusion occurred on Friday in a White House fact sheet detailing the reversal of various Biden administration policies, with bullet items referring to the rollback of President Trump’s memorial designation. On Saturday, reference to the monument was removed without explanation.
This change has made the fate of the Chuckwalla National Monument adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park and Sattila Highlands National Monument in Northern California.
However, the expectation that Trump intended to roll back the status of two California monuments led to immediate responses from their supporters.
“The upheaval of Trump’s Chuckwara and Sattila National Monuments is a horrifying attack on the public land system.
“These monuments were led by local tribes with overwhelming support from local and local communities, including business and recreationalists,” Anderson said. “This vindictive and unjust act is a slap in the face for all supporters of the tribe and public land.”
The prospect of a potential rollback was facilitated by directing Trump’s Secretary of Interior Douglas Burgham on February 3 to “examine and amend all withdrawn public lands if necessary.”
The directive was part of a drastic secretary order called “unleashing American energy,” which seeks to strengthen the extraction of federal land and water resources.
Spanning over 224,000 acres of lush forests and pristine lakes near the Oregon border, Sattitra is being explored for the development of geothermal energy.
The 640,000-acre Chuckwalla, located south of Joshua Tree National Park, was able to target water under the sturdy desert floor, former councillor Donald Medart Jr. of the Yuma Kuekan Indian Tribal Fort, told The Times earlier this month. His tribe was one of those who promoted the designation of the monument.
“Extracting all the groundwater will have devastating effects on our area,” said Medart, a tribal engagement specialist at Ono PO Strategies, a consulting firm.
Supporters of the two new California Monuments see extraction as a bad trade-off.
“The small amount of minerals in these areas are not worth destroying precious wildlife habitats, sacred tribal lands and world-class recreation,” Anderson said.
The series of events began when the White House website posted a fact sheet summarizing the executive order signed by Trump.
The New York Times reported in a blog post Saturday that the White House confirmed it had given up on creating two memorials to President Biden’s declaration. The report did not link to any specific Trump orders. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the White House confirmed Trump “plans” to withdraw the order.
National Park travelers posted a copy of the original fact sheet, saying that the first point of the six bullets “proclaiming an end declaration of nearly one million acres of acres constitutes a new national monument that traps enormous land from economic development and energy production.” The bullet was not on the fact sheet on Saturday.
Although this item did not name two monuments, the area numbers fit mostly with two new monuments in California.
Attempts to change monuments in California and elsewhere almost certainly warn lawsuits, conservation and environmental groups.
“This is straight from the Trump playbook to create chaos and confusion,” Biodiversity Center Anderson said in a follow-up email. “If Trump places these beloved California monuments on the chopping block, we’re there to protect them. This administration is seriously underestimating the depth of public support for these and other protected public lands.”
The administration’s legal authority to reverse the designation of its predecessor’s monument remains unknown after Trump stripped protections from marine monuments off the coast of New England to reduce the boundaries of Utah’s two monuments (the Bears’ ears and the magnificent staircase escalante) in his first term and allow commercial fishing.
The lawsuit challenging the cuts was still pending when Biden overturned the changes and the issues never resolved.
California has 21 national monuments that span the rough coastline more than any other state. It includes San Gabriel Mountains National Monument near Los Angeles, sand-to-snow-snow memorial to the east of the city, and Lava Bed National Monument in the far northeastern part of the state.
Source link
