President Biden on Tuesday signed proclamations to establish the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, which will protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California, during his last week in office. 

The event was delayed by a week due to the destructive wildfires raging in Southern California, and Biden revealed that he had wanted to do the ceremony in the state, but it had to be moved to the White House. 

“We’ve been carrying out the most aggressive climate agenda ever in the history of the world,” the president said in the East Room of the White House, before discussing the national monuments. “Our natural wonders are the heart and soul of our nation.” 

He said in his second week as president he signed an executive order “establishing the first ever conservation goal to protect 30% of all our lands and waters everywhere in America by 2030 … I call this national campaign America the Beautiful … And over the last four years, we’ve delivered … putting America on track to meet that bold goal, restoring it, creating new national monuments, conserving hundreds of millions of acres of land and waters all across America, from New England to Minnesota, Texas to Colorado, Arizona, Alaska.” 

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He added, “Over the past four years, I’m proud to have kept my commitment to protect more land and water than any president in American history.” 

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President Biden on Tuesday signed proclamations to establish the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, which will protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California, during his last week in office.  (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

The Chuckwalla National Monument will protect more than 600,000 acres of public land in the California desert near Joshua Tree National Park and the Colorado River, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. 

Biden listens to California officials update him on the wildfires on Jan. 10.  (eigh Vogel/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Sáttítla Highlands National Monument will protect more than 224,000 acres of land in Northern California in the Modoc, Shasta-Trinity, and Klamath national forests and “provides protection to tribal ancestral homelands, historic and scientific treasures, rare flora and fauna, and the headwaters of vital sources of water,” according to the U.S. Forest Service.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Elon Musk on Tuesday, alleging failure to timely disclose that he bought more than 5% of Twitter’s stock in 2022 before he took over the social media company.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, accuses Musk — tapped by Trump to co-head a so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” — of violating federal securities law because of the late disclosure.

The litigation underscores the longstanding tension between Musk, who backed President-elect Donald Trump, and the U.S. government. The eccentric billionaire has clashed with the SEC before, including over what the agency described as false and misleading statements he had posted on Twitter about taking his other company, Tesla, private.

A federal jury in San Francisco in Feb. 2023 cleared Musk of claims by Tesla investors that he defrauded them.

Under federal law, Musk was required to disclose his stake in Twitter 10 days after he acquired more than 5% of Twitter’s stock in March 2022, according to the lawsuit.

Instead, Musk disclosed his stake in Twitter in April 2022, 11 days after the regulatory deadline. By then, the billionaire had bought more 9% of Twitter’s stock. Twitter’s stock jumped more than 27% over its previous day’s closing price after Musk made the disclosure.

“As a result, Musk was able to continue purchasing shares at artificially low prices, allowing him to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his beneficial ownership report was due,” the lawsuit states.

The action also harmed investors who didn’t know about Musk’s stake and ended up selling their Twitter shares at low prices, the SEC alleges.

Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, said in a statement that “Mr. Musk has done nothing wrong and everyone sees this sham for what it is.” He accused the SEC of engaging in a “multi-year campaign of harassment” against the billionaire that “culminated in the filing of a single-count ticky tak complaint” against him.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler is stepping down Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration. In December, Trump said he would nominate Paul Atkins, a cryptocurrency advocate, to lead the securities regulator.

Musk’s big stake in Twitter was an early sign in 2022 that he might buy the company, which was struggling to attract ad dollars and compete with larger social networks such as Facebook.

After trying to back out of buying the social media company for $44 billion, he completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022. Musk, who renamed Twitter to X and took the company private, said he bought the platform to promote free speech.