The creation of the Chuckwalla National Monument in Riverside County is being challenged in court.
Attorneys for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a nonprofit research institute, have filed a lawsuit alleging that the Biden Administration overstepped its bounds when it created the 740,000-acre monument, according to a federal lawsuit.
That designation protects the land, which is mostly wilderness, from mining and development. The lawsuit was filed in Michigan on behalf of a man whose family owns mining rights within the monument area.
President Biden approved that designation – which the lawsuit believes should be reversed – in January shortly before his term ended, according to the reports.