Trump Administration Signals It Will Try to Eliminate Two National Monuments in California

What happened: Over the weekend, the Trump administration indicated that it would try to rescind the national monument status of Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands, two popular monuments in California. Major news outlets received confirmation from the administration that it plans to attempt to end protections for these monuments, but an official presidential order has not been issued.

Why it matters: Attacks on these monuments would jeopardize countless sacred sites, landscapes, and cultural resources that Tribal leaders and local communities fought for years to designate and deserve continued protection.

Any attempt to reduce national monument protections would be an act of presidential overreach because the president does not have the legal authority to dismantle national monuments.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to designate national monuments, but not the power to undo the protections granted by their predecessors. Court after court has affirmed the president’s authority to create national monuments on federal lands.

Congress’s intent was clear: the Antiquities Act is to be used to protect the nation’s archaeological, cultural, and scientific wonders. Not to destroy them.

What are the Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments?

• The Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monuments are our country’s newest monuments, designated by President Biden shortly before the end of his term in January 2025. These new monuments protect land in both northern and southern California of ecological, cultural, scientific, and historical significance.

• The Chuckwalla monument is a vitally important cultural and spiritual landscape that has been inhabited and traveled by Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. The monument designation helps ensure access to nature trails and will attract more visitors to boost the local economy.
• The Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in northern California protects sacred ancestral homelands in Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, and Modoc National Forests in northern California near Mount Shasta.
• The Pit River Tribe, who led its designation efforts, uses the Sáttítla Highlands for religious activities, ceremonies, and gatherings. This region also hosts the headwaters of two major rivers and provides high quality water for tens of millions of people, wildlife, and agriculture in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.

Double Hole Crater in the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California, with Mount Shasta visible on the horizon. (Bob Wick)

There is broad support for protecting these lands.

• Broad coalitions of Tribes, elected officials, businesses, scientists, health professionals, veterans, and local community members worked for years in northern and southern California to protect these landscapes and establish the monuments.

• Attacking national monuments is an unpopular position. A recent Conservation in the West poll reported that 89% of those surveyed oppose reducing or removing national monument protections.

What happens now?

We will continue to monitor Trump’s next steps on these and other monuments and work with our local partners to defend them.

When the first Trump administration tried to revoke national monument protections, Earthjustice stepped in alongside Tribes and other conservation groups with a vigorous defense. We’re ready to vigorously defend our public lands again against any attack from the second Trump administration

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