Thursday's proclamation of the expanded national monuments put President Joe Biden on track to conserve more lands and waters than any other president in history, the White House said.
The politicians say the new national monument near the Grand Canyon wasn’t created to preserve sacred Native American land and protect the ecosystem as the president proclaimed, but instead to halt mining operations.
Biden’s executive order will create the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument and protect land in Arizona’s Coconino and Mohave counties from any future uranium mining.
A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday ended a timber company's challenge of the Obama administration’s expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwestern Oregon.