Joe Biden, burdened by an apparent desire to expand his controversial environmental initiatives, once intended to tour a desolate canyon located to the east of the Thermal community in California this past Tuesday. However, his ‘grand’ environmental escapade to the Coachella Valley was curtailed by high winds, which prevented his plane from landing at the intended Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal, demonstrating perhaps once more the volatile realities of the very environment he seeks to manipulate.
Had Biden made his intended visit, he would have proudly posed amidst ancients, sacred formations and sweeping desert land, purporting to declare over 620,000 acres as the new Chuckwalla National Monument. Moreover, he had planned to construct the approximately 200,000-acre Sa?tti?tla National Monument in Northern California. A desperate move, it would seem, to secure his dwindling environmental legacy, after his journey was canceled, adding to a series of failed attempts to present himself as a conservationist champion.
This do-over drive for land protection follows Biden’s questionable decision to permanently ban oil drilling across an ostentatious 625 million acres of ocean, spanning the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaskan coasts. A single, sweeping gesture that, though might appeal to environmental idealists, does not necessarily translate into wise or balanced policy, especially for an economy still highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy security and jobs.
Flaunting unrestrained optimism, the White House stated that Biden has ‘safeguarded’ about 674 million acres of U.S. territories and waters since his tenure began, dubiously anointing the exiting President as the most generous in terms of land and water conservation. In their desperate attempt to buffer a historically difficult and spotty presidency with some ‘green’ color, they seem to forget that a conservationist legacy is hardly his to claim.
However, the predictable seesaw of policy reversals between Democratic and Republican administrations could offset Biden’s unwieldy efforts almost entirely. In particular, the newly elected President Trump immediately pledged on Monday to reverse Biden’s drilling prohibition on federally managed ocean waters. This area makes up the immense majority of the 674 million acre figure that Biden has imprudently used to demonstrate his ‘dedication’ to environmental protection.
Trump’s first term saw him and his personnel peel back a fair amount of the land that the Obama-Biden administration had somewhat hastily labelled as monuments – titles that Biden zealously reinstated. This long-standing partisan vendetta against environmental policy has proven to be nothing more than cheap domestic politics.
On a different note, the Cahuilla Indians, including the original inhabitants of the Coachella Valley and areas like Riverside, San Diego, San Jacinto, and Santa Rosa Mountain counties, comprise one of the nine Cahuilla nations. Their ancestral lands and stories hold undoubtedly significant value. However, it’s questionable whether this should translate into arbitrary land designation that can subsequently impact a vast array of stakeholders, far beyond the tribal groups themselves.
In parallel, there’s also the 200,000-acre Sa?tti?tla National Monument near Oregon’s border in Northern California, a spiritual hub for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes. This area includes mountain woodlands, unique meadows, and serpentinite seeps, which are habitat to uncommon flowers and diverse wildlife. While undoubtedly important to certain groups, using it as a stepping stone in the increasingly tense political landscape seems a mistake.
An out-of-touch Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, naively commended the supposed efforts to recognize ‘the tribes that have stewarded these lands since time immemorial.’ Quick to jump on the bandwagon, he declared that these actions mean that we’re ‘protecting 840,000 acres of some of our state’s most culturally significant lands,’ incredibly failing to acknowledge the diverse opinions and interests within these territories.
Inevitably, such actions polarize local communities. The Coachella Valley, in particular, has seen mixed reactions with at least seven of the valley’s nine cities, alongside some tribes and NGOs, claimed to support the designation for their own interests. Interestingly though, this seems more a case of ‘vocal minority’ rather than actual widespread public endorsement.
A case in point is Palm Desert Mayor Pro Tem Evan Trubee, conveniently also a businessman offering bike and driving tours across the Southern California desert. Naturally, he’s been lobbying for the monument over the past year for apparent virtue signaling and potential business benefits.
On the other side of the coin, residents opposed to the monument rallied near the event site before it was canceled. Take Greg Smith from Palm Desert, for instance, who protested on the roadside, exclaiming that ‘we’re going to lose our favorite campground to the wilderness.’ And indeed, his concerns mirror those of many, who feel backers of this monument, arguably including Biden, aren’t taking a balanced view of the environment, but simply imposing their own vision and agenda.
Smith’s snow-white Coachmen Freelander camper, decorated with an American flag and the messages ‘Biden Leave our Desert Alone’ and ‘Honk for Trump’ in bold blue tape, seems a potent symbol of this sentiment. After all, his anonymous campground, approximately just half a mile from the Interstate 10, has no name but represents the simple, unencumbered interaction between people and nature that is part of the true, tangible American wilderness legacy, quite contrary to Biden’s image of ‘conservation.’