Inside a packed meeting hall in Azusa, a top Biden Administration official heard from dozens of speakers the night of Tuesday, Nov. 7, mostly in support of expanding the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument with additional protections of scenic rivers and sensitive mountain habitat.
More than 250 people attended the public hearing at the invitation of the president, who sent Homer Wilkes, under secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for natural resources and environment, to listen, review transcripts of the meeting and report back to help President Joe Biden decide if he should expand the monument’s size by a third.
“This monument is being worked through the legislative process and I see there is a lot of support for it,” said Wilkes, in an interview during a break in the 2 1/2-hour meeting. “My job is to come out here and listen to what concerns people have.”
Twin bills from Rep. Judy Chu, (D-Pasadena) and Sen. Alex Padilla, (D-Calif.) introduced in May propose adding 109,167 acres of Angeles National Forest land to the 346,179-acre San Gabriel Mountains National Monument with the hope that it will bring the monument more funding and resources. The monument includes 342,177 acres of the Angeles National Forest and 4,002 acres of the neighboring San Bernardino National Forest.
The bills also would designate more than 30,000 acres of protected wilderness and add 45.5 miles to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
Chu and Padilla have asked Biden to use his powers under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to add federal forest land already within the 700,000-acre Angeles National Forest to the monument, bypassing Congress and the legislative process. The original monument started with legislation 10 years ago, but was created by President Barack Obama with a stroke of the pen in October 2014 during his visit to the Angeles National Forest.
Wilkes said he will confer first with his boss, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Vilsack will then…
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