South of Death Valley in California’s Mojave Desert is the 624,270-acre Chuckwalla National Monument. Established by President Joe Biden on January 14, 2025, this is one of California’s two newest national monuments. It’s home to unique desert biodiversity, culturally significant Native American sites, archaeological finds, historical military training bases, and recreation opportunities galore.
But just months after its creation, a Texas group is trying to dissolve its designation as a national monument, despite Chuckwalla’s support from politicians, local communities, Native tribes, and organizations like the VetVoice Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) argues that President Biden abused the power of the Antiquities Act to establish Chuckwalla as a national monument.
A press release announced TPPF’s lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Department of the Interior (DOI) on May 1.
“This lame duck land grab by the federal government makes public lands less accessible for recreation, amateur mining, and other uses,” the lawsuit said.
‘Michigan Guy’ Sues U.S. Government Over CA Land
The lawsuit names an amateur miner from Michigan named Dan Torongo and the BlueRibbon Coalition, an Idaho-based motorized recreation advocacy group, as plaintiffs.
“The goal of the lawsuit is to have the national monument designation declared void,” Matt Miller, the lead attorney for this lawsuit from the TPPF, told GearJunkie. “The Antiquities Act is being abused when it’s used to set aside these multi-hundred-thousand-acre areas as national monuments.”
Jenessa Goldbeck, the CEO of the VetVoice Foundation, which advocated for the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument, vehemently disagreed. Goldbeck calls Miller’s assertions “patently false.”
“We’ve got to call this what it is,” Goldbeck told GearJunkie. “It’s a Texas special interest group representing a Michigan guy who has an interest in monetizing the land, trying to intervene in something that Californians worked really hard to establish.”
Chuckwalla National Monument: Significance
Chuckwalla National Monument received its name from the iguana-like chuckwalla lizards that live there. But the area also provides habitat for desert bighorn sheep and the endangered desert tortoise. This has been a culturally significant area for Native Americans for hundreds of years, which is why the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mohave, Quechan, and Serrano tribes urged Biden to protect it as a National Monument.
The area is also home to historically significant military training bases, like the Desert Training Center, where General George Patton prepared American troops to fight in the deserts of North Africa in World War II. That’s why Goldbeck’s foundation, VetVoice, lobbied for the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument.
“This was something that the community asked for, local tribes asked for, local cities asked for across the political partisan divide,” Goldbeck said. “It means that we are protecting these lands for generations to come.”
Other groups that supported the creation of this national monument include the National Audubon Society, California Native Plant Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and more.
In May 2024, then-Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland endorsed the designation. In September 2024, California’s legislature unanimously passed a resolution in support of it.
However, despite the support from locals, tribes, politicians, and organizations, individuals like Torongo and groups like the BlueRibbon Coalition oppose it. National monument status means more regulations on resource extraction activities and less access for recreational vehicles.
“My family has utilized the Small Miners Act of 1872 to claim and maintain mineral rights in the Chuckwalla Mountains since 1981,” Torongo said. “This all ended on January 14, 2025, when a lame duck president chose to steal mineral rights from citizens like me.”
‘Illegal and Unconstitutional’ Abuse of Antiquities Act
According to Miller, attorney for the plaintiff, the Antiquities Act was originally created so presidents could protect small historical and cultural sites. It wasn’t designed to set aside huge swaths of public land for federal protection, he said.
“The idea was to protect actual antiquities, a cliff dwelling site or a ruin, something that was sacred, because they were being looted,” Miller said. That’s why he argues that a monument designation of this scale is both “illegal and unconstitutional.”
Goldbeck sees that logic as disingenuous. She even went so far as to call it “misinformation.”
“The Antiquities Act is a law that’s existed for a hundred years,” Goldbeck said. “Republican President Teddy Roosevelt signed it into law, and presidents of both parties have used it for the last century to designate monuments of widely varying sizes.”
She rattled off several examples, including the 818,000-acre Grand Canyon National Monument (which Roosevelt designated in 1908), 1.5 million-acre Death Valley National Monument (1933), and 825,000-acre Joshua Tree National Monument (1936). All three of which have since earned National Park designation.
Miller further claimed that designating Chuckwalla as a national monument will decrease recreational access for the general public and miners like Torongo. President Biden’s proclamation restricts vehicles to using currently existing BLM roads and trails. Miller said it will also impose additional burdens on miners.
But the Protect Chuckwalla Organization told GearJunkie that the national monument status won’t affect most recreational access.
“Chuckwalla National Monument is incredibly popular for hiking, camping, using authorized OHV routes, hunting, and more, and people can still do all these activities in the monument,” the group said.
Trump Weighs In
A national monument designation has never been overturned. Miller admitted that’s a daunting fact, but it doesn’t affect his determination to see this case through, especially since President Donald Trump has voiced similar opinions about Chuckwalla National Monument.
In May 2025, he threatened to rescind its designation because it locked up “vast amounts of land from economic development and energy production.”
If the court decides that the president has the authority to set aside vast swaths of land under the Antiquities Act, Miller said that would violate the Property Clause. He explained that the clause says Congress alone is in charge of determining how Federal Land is used. He noted that violating the Property Clause “would be a violation of the structural guarantees that are contained in the Constitution.”
That may be factual. But the local support for the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument from the area’s towns and cities, tribes, environmental groups, veterans, bipartisan elected officials, and over 300 local businesses could make this a steep uphill legal battle for TPPF.
“The community was thrilled when [Chuckwalla] was designated,” Goldbeck said. “I just think it’s crazy that out-of-state special interests are trying to come into California to get something for themselves at the expense of the rest of us.”
Read the full article here