President Joe Biden on Tuesday established two new national monuments in California, the latest in a flurry of major environmental initiatives affecting the Golden State as his presidency comes to a close.

Biden designated 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.

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.

“The stunning canyons and winding paths of the Chuckwalla National Monument represent a true unmatched beauty,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. “I am so grateful that future generations will have the opportunity to experience what makes this area so unique.”

The Sáttítla monument, which includes parts of Shasta-Trinity, Modoc and Klamath national forests, was a top priority of the Pit River Tribe, which is based in Burney, northeast of Redding.

“For generations, my people have fought to protect Sáttítla, and today we celebrate the voices of our ancestors being heard,” said Yatch Bamford, Chairman of the Pit River Nation.

Not everyone supports the new monuments, however.

Last summer, when the idea of a Sáttítla monument was first gaining momentum, Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Yuba City, whose district includes the area, said he was opposed because the designation would mean more regulations and limits on the land, which has been eyed for 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.”

City leaders in Blythe, a town of 18,000 people near the Chuckwalla monument area, opposed it because they worried it could limit large scale solar development.

On Tuesday, however, a major California solar industry organization said the boundaries appear to have been drawn in a way that wouldn’t affect transmission lines, or solar plans.

“Solar development is off limits in so much of the desert,” said Shannon Eddy, executive director of the Large-Scale Solar Association, in Sacramento. “I understand their concern. But right now we don’t share that concern. We don’t think the monument is going to hamper solar development.”

Biden was scheduled to visit in Thermal, in the Coachella Valley, Tuesday afternoon with Gov. Gavin Newsom and give a speech about the monuments. But because of dangerously high winds in the area, his flight was canceled, and White House officials said a ceremony will be held next week in Washington D.C.

Tuesday’s moves were the latest in a wave of environmental actions that Biden has taken at the request of California leaders before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

On Monday, Biden withdrew 625 million acres of federal ocean waters from new offshore oil and natural gas drilling, including all federal waters off California, Oregon and Washington, along with the entire Atlantic Coast, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

In November, he finalized the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, banning oil drilling over 156 miles of coast along San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. It was the largest new national marine sanctuary in California in 30 years since President George H.W. Bush established the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.

Last Friday, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency granted California permission to enforce its zero-emission rules for lawn mowers and leaf blowers, and to allow tougher new emissions rules for refrigerated trucks and off-road vehicles like mining trucks and bulldozers. The decisions, called waivers, grant California the authority to set rules under the Clean Air Act that are more far-reaching than federal standards.

In December, the EPA granted California waivers for the state’s landmark pollution rules for cars and trucks, which prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger vehicles like cars, pickup trucks and minivans by 2035.

Trump is expected to try to reverse the EPA waivers, which will likely lead to a prolonged court battle. In a radio interview Monday, he said he would also reverse Biden’s offshore oil drilling ban. But under a court ruling in 2019, to do so will require an act of Congress, where Republicans have a very narrow 219-215 majority in the House and may not have the votes.

Only Congress can establish new national parks. But Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt to reduce looting and theft of Indian pottery and artifacts in New Mexico and other areas, 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, which in many cases Congress has eventually upgraded to national parks.

Roosevelt used it to set aside the Grand Canyon, and also Pinnacles in San Benito County; Herbert Hoover used it to protect Arches in Utah and Death Valley in California; 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.

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