Politics
How Dianne Feinstein helped preserve the California desert
Federal offices were flooded with applications to place solar mirrors across the arid flatlands of southeastern California, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein was not going to let that stop her from protecting the heart of the Mojave Desert from development.
Some of those projects were headed toward fruition when Feinstein in 2009 announced plans to introduce bills to establish national monuments on roughly 1 million acres of public lands that are home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, extinct volcanoes, sand dunes and ancient petroglyphs.
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Her campaign to create the monuments amid the unfolding desert land rush turned out to be a lengthy one, held up for years by conflicts among environmentalists, off-roaders, hunters and renewable energy interests.
Ultimately, she prevailed. President Obama in 2016 designated three new national monuments in the California desert, expanding protection to 1.8 million acres of Mojave Desert landscape.
Joshua trees rise from the desert floor as a snow-capped San Jacinto Peak looms in the distance at Joshua Tree National Park in January 2022.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Sen. Feinstein had a passion for the Mojave Desert — and everything in it,” said David Myers, president of the Wildlands Conservancy and a longtime friend of Feinstein, who died on Friday. “It stirred her soul: the wildlife, the sand dunes, the wind, the people who worked the land — the old California romance with backcountry roads of adventure and enchantment.”
“I visited the Mojave several times with Sen. Feinstein and her husband,” he recalled. “She was comfortable there. Wore no makeup. Absorbed the wonders of it all.
“She was a defender of the California desert like no other.”
Obama’s designation of the monuments was requested by Feinstein, who for a decade had sought to protect land that wasn’t included in the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. That measure, which she authored, covered nearly 7.8 million acres, elevated Death Valley and Joshua Tree to national park status, and created Mojave National Preserve.
A photographer hikes the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park in December 2014.
(Los Angeles Times)
Feinstein had initially asked Obama in 2014 to use his authority to create the protected zones, without approval of Congress, to break a logjam of interests that had stalled her previous bills.
Her effort came on the heels of Obama’s designation earlier that year of much of Angeles National Forest as a national monument. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) had urged Obama to act after Congress appeared unwilling to approve her legislation to create a national recreation area to address problems in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Earlier this year, Feinstein supported a request by Chu and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) for President Biden to add 109,167 acres to San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
The move would increase the monument by roughly a third and extend its boundaries to the back door of San Fernando Valley neighborhoods including Sylmar, Santa Clarita and Pacoima. It would also give the U.S. Forest Service greater ability to protect natural resources and manage crowds in areas left out of the 2014 monument designation by then-President Obama.
“California has lost a true champion for our state,” Chu said.
A desert spiny lizard clings to twigs at Joshua Tree National Park in September and 2022.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
Presidents dating back to Theodore Roosevelt have invoked the Antiquities Act to sidestep Congress to protect areas of historic or scientific interest.
Such action, however, is nearly always controversial, with critics saying the designations unreasonably limit logging, grazing, mining and other activities across wide swaths of the West.
In California, the development of solar-power facilities in the desert had been a top priority of the Obama administration as it sought to ease the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.
Companies were racing to finalize their permits, which would qualify them to obtain some of the $15 billion in federal stimulus funds designated for renewable energy projects. At stake was the creation of 48,000 jobs and enough new energy to power almost 1.8 million homes, officials said at the time.
Despite fierce political and economic headwinds, Obama in 2016 designated the three new national monuments Feinstein had requested: Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow, and Castle Mountains.
A giant rock formation occupies White Tank Campground in Joshua Tree National Park.
(Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)
Much of the land had been purchased more than a decade earlier by private citizens and Myers’ Wildlands Conservancy, then donated to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in anticipation of its eventually receiving the protection of national monument status.
A post-designation ceremony held in the Oval Office was “one of my proudest moments in conservation,” Myers said. “They had us pose for a photograph — Sen. Feinstein was on Obama’s left, and I was on his right.”
“President Obama pulled us closer to him for the photo,” he added, “then smiled and said, ‘We’re all friends here, right?’ ”
new video loaded: Democrats Question Hegseth About Misconduct Allegations
transcript
transcript
Democrats Question Hegseth About Misconduct Allegations
Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee called Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, unfit to serve. Meanwhile, Republicans praised Mr. Hegseth’s record and performance.
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“The totality of your own writings and alleged conduct would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the secretary of defense.” “Have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature? The fact is that your own lawyer said that you entered into an N.D.A. and paid a person who accused you of raping her a sum of money to make sure that she did not file a complaint. I have read multiple reports of your regularly being drunk at work. Will you resign as secretary of defense if you drink on the job, which is a 24/7 position?” “I’ve made this commitment on behalf of —” “Will you resign as secretary of defense?” “I’ve made this commitment on behalf of the men and women I’m serving —” “I’m not hearing an answer to my question. So I’m going to move on.” “You claim that this was all anonymous. We have seen records with names attached to all of these, including the name of your own mother. So don’t make this into some anonymous press thing.” “I’m quoting you from the podcast. ‘Women shouldn’t be in combat at all.’ What I see is that there’s a 32-day period in which you suddenly have another description about your views of women in the military, and I just want to know what changed in the 32 days that the song you sang is not the song you come in here today to sing?” “Senator, the concerns I have and the concerns of many have had, especially in ground combat units, is that in pursuit of certain percentages or quotas, standards have been changed.” “Our adversaries watch closely during times of transition, and any sense that the Department of Defense that keeps us safe is being steered by someone who is wholly unprepared for the job, puts America at risk. And I am not willing to do that.” “I know what I don’t know. I know I’ve never run an organization of three million people with a budget of $850 billion.” “Why do you want to do this job? What’s your, what drives you?” “Because I love my country, Senator. And I’ve dedicated my life to the warfighters.” “He is a decorated post-9/11 combat veteran. He will inject a new warrior ethos into the Pentagon, a spirit that can cascade from the top down.”
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Biden says he's been carrying out ‘most aggressive climate agenda’ in history as he designates CA monuments
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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Biden signed a proclamation to establish Chuckwalla National Monument and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in California on Tuesday. (Anna Rose Layden/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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.
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