Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small issued a news release praising President Biden’s designation of a new national monument, Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California, which the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association denounced.
“This landscape, which has been occupied by Indigenous peoples for more than 5,000 years, continues to be integral to Tribal religious and cultural practices despite a history of forced dispossession. Establishing this monument takes a step toward recognizing the history of exclusion of Tribal Nations on these lands,” Vilsack said.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council condemned the Biden administration’s action as an “irresponsible use of the Antiquities Act to create the Chuckwalla and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments.
“There are just days left in the Biden Administration and once again, the Antiquities Act is being recklessly applied to nearly 1 million acres to create tremendous uncertainty for rural communities that rely on responsible resource management,” said NCBA Executive Director of Natural Resources and PLC Executive Director Kaitlynn Glover.
“President Biden’s unilateral action to create new monuments this late in his term shows that these monuments are politically motivated and devoid of resource planning for the future. The record is clear: monument designations at the eleventh hour jeopardize rangeland health, threaten local economic stability, and unnecessarily make these areas political pawns during a transition period. NCBA and PLC strongly oppose this declaration and will work with the Trump administration to limit abuse and bring common sense back to this process,” Glover concluded.
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NAFB/USDA/NCBA
