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Trump White House Says He Will Eliminate Two National Monuments In California, Then Deletes The Announcement

The fate of two newly named national monuments in California that stretch across roughly 850,000 acres of scenic lands — an area 28 times larger than of the city of San Francisco — remained unclear Monday after President Trump issued a statement saying he was rescinding their protections, but then deleted it the next day.

At issue are the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California, south of Joshua Tree National Park, and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California, east of Mount Shasta near the Oregon border.

Former President Joe Biden established the two monuments in January during the final days of his administration.

Chuckwalla is 624,000 acres of federal land, mostly overseen by the Bureau of Land Management where the Colorado and Mojave Deserts come together in a mix of scenic mountains and canyons that is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and chuckwalla lizards. Sáttítla is 224,000 acres of national forest land in the remote landscapes of Siskiyou and Modoc counties, a landscape rich with bald eagles, black bears and salmon. Together, the two areas are larger than Yosemite National Park.

Both places are sacred to native tribes, who pushed for monument status, which limits logging, mining and other extractive uses, such as energy development. Late Friday night, their fate was called into question.

Just before midnight on the East Coast, Trump issued an executive order overturning 19 previous executive orders and presidential actions that Biden had put in place during the past four years. The list included a requirement that businesses that contract with the federal government pay workers a minimum wage of $17.75 an hour, and that federal agencies urge other countries to reduce discrimination against gay people.

Included with Trump's executive order was a fact sheet. It said Trump's order would also be: "Terminating proclamations declaring nearly a million acres constitute new national monuments that lock up vast amounts of land from economic development and energy production."

But by Saturday, that line had been deleted from the fact sheet.

Asked Monday to clarify if Trump was revoking the monuments or not, Jennifer Peace, a Department of Interior spokeswoman, referred questions to the White House. White House officials did not answer questions on the record, referring journalists to the original executive order.

Environmental groups blasted the actions Monday.

"It's poor planning and communication," said Kate Groetzinger, a spokeswoman for the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group based in Denver that advocates for public lands across the West.

"We are in the dark," she added. "It seems like the White House got their wires crossed. Nothing has been published in the Federal Register. As far as we are concerned the monuments still stand. If they try to reduce or rescind these monuments they should prepare for a strong backlash from the public."

Asked if they could clarify the issue for the public, representatives of U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Redding, whose district includes the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, did not respond.

Last summer, when the idea of a Sáttítla monument was first gaining momentum, LaMalfa said he was opposed because the designation would mean more regulations and limits on the federally owned land, which has been eyed at times for possible geothermal development.

"They just want to lock everything up so nobody can access it hardly at all," LaMalfa told the Redding Record Searchlight in July. "These aren't the friends of rural California here."

Only Congress can establish new national parks. But Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, presidents can establish national monuments by proclamation on existing federal land, without approval from Congress.

Monument designation often brings new conservation rules that limit mining, oil drilling, or other development. Nearly every president has used the law to establish monuments. In many cases Congress has eventually upgraded them to national parks.

Roosevelt used the law to set aside the Grand Canyon, and also Pinnacles in San Benito County; Bill Clinton set aside Sequoia National Monument and George W. Bush used it to protect expansive areas of the remote Pacific Ocean, including the world's deepest location, the Marianas Trench.

Whether a president can revoke a monument is legally unclear. The 1906 law says nothing about it.

During Trump's first term, he shrank the boundaries of two national monuments in Utah. Environmentalists sued, and the case was still pending when Biden took office and restored their original boundaries.

President Biden on Tuesday Jan. 7, 2025 established the Sattitla Highlands National Monument over 224,000 acres of national forest land in the Medicine Lake Highlands and surrounding areas east of Mount Shasta near the California-Oregon border. (Photo: Bob Wick) 

Originally Published: March 17, 2025 at 3:11 PM PDT

Will Trump Try To Eliminate Chuckwalla, Sattitla National Monuments Or Not?

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Future Of The Newest National Monuments Looks Murky After White House Communication

Ladder Canyon Trail is part of Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California, where at least six tribes have ancestral ties to the region. Image: Nate Perez/NPR

Future of the newest national monuments looks murky after White House communication

The Trump administration has sparked confusion over the future of two national monuments in California that President Biden designated before he left office. Biden established Chuckwalla National Monument and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument on Jan. 14, protecting land considered sacred by area tribes.

The confusion started on March 14 when President Trump issued an executive order rescinding several Biden-era actions. That order did not mention the monuments, but on the same day, the White House issued a fact sheet that called for terminating nearly a million acres that "constitute new national monuments that lock up vast amounts of land from economic development and energy production." That language was later removed.

When asked to clarify the monuments' status, the White House pointed to the president's executive order from March 14, which makes no mention of changes to the monuments.

Presidents do not have the authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to revoke national monument designations, although they have modified boundaries in the past. Trump significantly reduced the boundaries of two national monuments in Utah during his first term in office. Conservationists and tribes worry something similar could happen in California.

For now, Chuckwalla — named after a wide-bellied lizard — remains protected from new development and critical mineral mining as a national monument.

Ancestral land

Chuckwalla National Monument spans roughly 710,000 acres where the Mojave and the Sonoran desert meet. It's home to chollas and saguaros cacti, and the endangered desert tortoise. At least six tribes have a cultural tie to the land, including the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians.

Gary Resvaloso, who is a Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla tribal member, drives his truck down a sandy road in Chuckwalla, pointing out red rock canyons. The color, he explains, comes from the story of coyote, who grabbed the heart of Mukat, one of the Cahuilla Tribe's creators, from a burning funeral pyre. "As he ran with it, the blood dripped on the mountains out here and on the area," Resvaloso says. "It's called Quawish-Ulish — that means red rock."

Gary Resvaloso, who is a Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla tribal member, stands at the entrance of Ladder Canyon Trail at Chuckwalla National Monument. The Torres Martinez Tribe's creation history is located in these lands. Image: Nate Perez/NPR

The bloodstains can still be seen on the canyons in Chuckwalla that are tinged beige, purple and red.

The footprints of the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe are also found in this desert.

Fort Yuma Quechan tribal member Donald Medart Jr. Says he takes his kids to the area to show them the history of their creation.

"[Some] cremation sites are subsurface and some of them are still undisturbed," Medart says. "For us, it's a burial ground. It's an area of trade. It's an area where we left artifacts from village sites."

Those artifacts, he says, are what the tribe hopes to safeguard now that Chuckwalla is a national monument. The monument doesn't have a visitor center yet and a makeshift dirt lot now serves as a parking area. Now comes the task of tribes working with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees much of the land, to figure out how to co-steward the monument.

Follow a long, windy and unpaved road and you'll end up at Ladder Canyon Trail at Chuckwalla National Monument, which then-President Joe Biden designated on Jan.14, 2025. Image: Nate Perez/NPR

Nada Wolff Culver signed the interim management plan for the monument before she left the BLM in January. She says a future plan involves co-stewardship through a possible tribal commission.

" If one is established by the tribes, it leaves it up to the tribes to decide how they would like to create that, not to tell them what to do as sovereign nations," Wolff Culver says.

The tribes are close to forming a tribal commission, according to Medart. Once that's established, he says, that will dictate how the tribes do business on these lands and how they will incorporate traditional and cultural knowledge into caring for Chuckwalla.

A shrinking town's worry

Not everybody's thrilled with the monument. Blythe, a town of around 18,000 people, is about an hour east of Chuckwalla. City officials have eyed some of the land for development and job opportunities.

Blythe's population has declined nearly 20% in the past decade and city leaders fear worst is to come after one of the city's main employer s— a state prison — closed last year.

Mayor Joey DeConinck has called Blythe home for more than 50 years, and Vice Mayor Johnny Rodriguez was born and raised in the area. They say the new monument takes up too much land.

They were hoping parts of what is now Chuckwalla National Monument could open the door for future energy production. They look to their neighbors near the Salton Sea, where lithium deposits could be developed to mine the critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries. DeConinck and Rodriguez wonder if something similar could be discovered at Chuckwalla.

"It's all BLM land already. It's already all protected," Rodriguez says. "Yet, if this monument status is not adjusted, at least on the eastern end of it [where Blythe is], all it's going to do is kill any future potential development that could help our area, our grandchildren."

In February, Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum issued an executive order to look into removing obstacles for developers in areas filled with natural resources. That could make the exploration for critical minerals in places like Chuckwalla easier.

Interior Department spokesperson Elizabeth Peace denied that there's a plan to review national monuments.

"The Department of the Interior is currently conducting an internal review of the reports submitted to the Secretary," Peace said in an email. "At this stage, we are assessing these reports to determine if any further action is warranted, and we remain dedicated to ensuring that all items are thoroughly evaluated as part of our internal management process."

Rodriguez and DeConinck hope the Trump administration will adjust Chuckwalla's boundaries, to make way for any future energy production.

Concern for public lands

The confusion and speculation over public lands have left the tribes and conservationists worried about the fate of Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments and other public lands.

In 2017, Trump shrunk the boundaries of Bears Ears in Utah from roughly 1.3 million acres to around 228,000. He then reduced Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half, taking the nearly 2 million acres designation to about 1 million. As NPR reported at the time, the reduction of both monuments marked the largest reversal of national monument protections in U.S. History.

At that time, Trump called the original designation of the monuments "abuses of the Antiquities Act," which allows presidents to establish legal protections on federal lands that are culturally, historically or scientifically significant. During a December 2017 press conference, Trump said the act gave "enormous power to faraway bureaucrats at the expense of the people who actually live here, work here and make this place their home."

The move was largely seen as a way to open up mining for uranium and coal, as well as oil and gas drilling. Biden restored both monuments to their original size in 2021. Now there's worry after recent communication from the White House that Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands in California could have boundaries reduced or even be eliminated.

Davina Smith is Diné (Navajo Nation) and the co-chair for the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition. She says tribes are fearful that Bears Ears could be taken back once again.

" But we continue to move forward — knowing of why we continue to advocate and do what we can to protect these lands," she says.

Public lands weren't always a contentious issue, according to Paul Sutter, who specializes in U.S. And global environmental history at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

He says the economic decline of the 1970s started to push people on the political right against laws like the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, "as getting in the way of economic development, getting in the way of property rights."

Ranchers, county commissioners and some of Utah's congressional leaders wanted to get rid of regulations on public lands as part of what became known as the Sagebrush Rebellion. They wanted more control over grazing rights, and state control over federal lands, so they could ultimately drill for more oil and gas on public lands. Sutter says by the 1980s, public land and environmental politics started to become intensely partisan.

The Wise Use Movement also developed in the 1980s. Farmers, miners and the timber industry called for more access to logging, mining and oil extraction on public lands.

But Sutter says public lands have become more popular than ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. That's why he's hopeful that, over time, the public will really come to see these lands as part of their history.

And he says seeing tribal interests increasingly reflected "in those public lands is also a really hopeful thing."

Medart shares that sentiment. He says the Quechan people have roamed the deserts since time immemorial.

" We've not only survived within these deserts, but we've thrived within this region," he says. " And we're going to continue to do that no matter what happens today or tomorrow or next week. We will always thrive within this region."

Audio transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The Trump administration said in a document published on Friday that it was eliminating two national monuments in California, monuments initially created by the Biden administration. Then the Trump administration updated the document, removed the reference and sparked confusion over the monument's future. NPR's Nate Perez reports.

NATE PEREZ, BYLINE: There's an area in southern California where the Mojave and Sonoran deserts meet. This is home to cholla and soweto cactus, rugged mountains and the endangered desert tortoise. This is Chuckwalla National Monument. It's named after a big-bellied lizard with flappy skin that roams the southwest desert.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE CHUGGING)

PEREZ: Gary Resvaloso drives his truck down a rugged sandy road pointing out landmarks.

GARY RESVALOSO: So it's called Painted Canyon, right? Some red, the blueish and all that.

PEREZ: Resvaloso is a Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla tribal member and a tribal council member. He says the red rocks out here signify the blood of Mukat, the Cahuilla tribe's creator, after a coyote grabbed Mukat's heart and ran with it.

RESVALOSO: As he ran with it, the blood dripped on the mountains out here on the Painted Canyon area. It's called (non-English language spoken). That means red rock.

PEREZ: These are the ancestral homelands to at least five tribes, including the Cahuilla and the Quechan tribes.

DONALD MEDART JR: The actual footprints of the Quechan people and many peoples, native people of the desert southwest, our footprints are there in this desert.

PEREZ: That's Donald Medart Jr. He's with the Fort Yuma Quechan tribe. He says he takes his kids out to the area to show them the history of their creation.

MEDART: For us, it's a burial ground. It's an area of trade. It's an area where we left artifacts from village sites.

PEREZ: Around 710,000 acres are now protected from new development and critical mineral mining. Chuckwalla doesn't have a visitor center yet. A patch of dirt functions as a parking lot, and there are trails but hardly any signs. Nada Wolff Culver helped establish the monument before she left the Bureau of Land Management in January.

NADA WOLFF CULVER: What makes this place amazing is how it survives and thrives in the desert. That makes the people who survive and thrive there amazing.

PEREZ: But protecting places like Chuckwalla have at times been contentious. Last Friday, after my reporting trip, President Trump caused concern among tribes and conservationists. The administration put out a document announcing the elimination of Chuckwalla and another monument in northern California. Then, adding to the confusion, that language was later removed.

During Trump's first term in office, he did reduce the monument boundaries for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah to try and spark uranium mining and oil and gas drilling. But Biden reversed that. So for now, Chuckwalla remains, and tribes are moving ahead with forming a tribal commission to work with the BLM to manage the land. That's according to Wolff Culver.

WOLFF CULVER: So that leaves it up to the tribes to decide how they would like to create that, not to tell them what to do, as sovereign nations.

PEREZ: But not everybody's happy about Chuckwalla. Take the city of Blythe, about an hour east from the monument, where around 18,000 people live. One of the city's main employers, a state prison, closed last year. And the population of Blythe has declined nearly 20% in the past decade. Vice Mayor Johnny Rodriguez says the monument takes up too much land and threatens the survival of their city.

JOHNNY RODRIGUEZ: All this is going to do is kill any future potential development that could help our area.

PEREZ: That's why Rodriguez and other city officials hope the Trump administration will adjust Chuckwalla's boundaries to open the door for any future energy production, such as lithium for electric vehicle batteries. That leaves conservationists like Kelly Herbinson, with the Mojave Land Trust, worried about the future of this monument and other public lands.

KELLY HERBINSON: We really need to be thoughtful about protecting big, big swaths of nature, whatever is left, so that we can maintain that ecosystem function for humans to be able to survive.

PEREZ: As for the tribes, Donald Medart Jr. Says his people have been here since the beginning of time.

MEDART: And we're going to continue to do that. You know, no matter what happens today or tomorrow or next week, we will always thrive within this region.

PEREZ: But, he says, having monument status will help protect their ancestral home. Nate Perez, NPR News.

KELLY: The White House responded to a request from NPR asking to clarify the monument's status. They pointed us to the president's executive order from Friday, which makes no mention of changes to the monument.

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