The move bans oil and gas drilling, mining and other industrial activities on vast swaths of public land in California.
By Maxine Joselow and Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post
President Joe Biden on Tuesday established two massive new national monuments in California and highlighted his environmental initiatives as some of the defining achievements of a presidency that will end in less than a week.
“We’ve been carrying out the most aggressive climate agenda in the history of the world,” Biden told nearly 300 people gathered in the White House’s East Room. Without directly mentioning President-elect Donald Trump and his allies, he added: “We don’t have to choose between the environment and the economy or between conservation and clean energy — we can do both at the same time.”
Biden signed proclamations at the event designating the roughly 624,000-acre Chuckwalla National Monument and the roughly 224,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands National Monument. The move bars oil and gas drilling, mining and other industrial activity on vast swaths of public land that several Native American tribes have considered sacred for thousands of years.
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