Alex Padilla U.S. Senator for California

SACRAMENTO, CA — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) delivered a keynote address at the California Natural Resources Agency’s (CNRA) 30×30 Partnership 2024 Summit. The summit brought together conservation leaders, policymakers, and advocates at CNRA’s Sacramento headquarters to highlight California’s progress conserving 30 percent of the state’s lands and coastal waters by 2030 as part of the global 30×30 initiative.

Padilla highlighted several efforts to create new, and expand existing, national monuments to protect California’s public lands, advance tribally-led conservation efforts, and meet California’s conservation goals, including successfully securing the expansion of the San Gabriel Mountains and Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monuments.

The summit built on the momentum outlined in California’s recently released Pathways to 30×30 Annual Report, which highlights the state’s progress toward its conservation goals and outlines key steps for the coming years. California is only six million acres of land and half a million acres of coastal waters away reaching its 30×30 goals.

Video of Senator Padilla’s full remarks is available here.

Key Excerpts:

• It was not that long ago when Governor Newsom signed the executive order in the fall of 2020, calling for 30×30, preserving our lands and waters for not just the next generation, but for future generations. And we did it because we knew of the importance and the urgency of tackling climate and its impacts. We knew it was important because we believe in science.

• It wasn’t just bold and audacious but so well thought out that it inspired the Biden-Harris Administration soon thereafter, in January 2021, to call on the nation to achieve a 30×30 objective as well. So as the adage goes, so goes California, so goes the nation.

• When you grow up in a community like Pacoima, a proud working-class community, you had these visions of the mountains, and if you’re really, really lucky as a kid, you get taken on a field trip, maybe to go camping, maybe on a hike. And when you’re able to experience that, in the mountains that you see each and every day, and yet you feel like it’s a whole world away, we know what the impact means of these designations, these protections, improving access to the outdoors for the millions of people who didn’t have it before.

• Chuckwalla… and Sáttítla in northern California. Together, they represent another 800,000 acres of public lands that we can and will protect in the state of California. And we know that it’s not just because of the quantity, again, the metrics, but the quality, the thoughtful biodiversity assessments that have been done.

• All the projects that we take on, we’re going to continue to need to work together, and judging by the energy and the spirit in this room, I know we will continue to work together because every proposal that has come my way has begun with a local vision and a local effort of organizing, mobilizing, educating, building that coalition that creates the momentum for us to be able to do our part.

Senator Padilla has consistently advocated for protecting California’s public lands and coastal waters. Most recently, Padilla, Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), and Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.-30) called on President Biden to use his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate the Sáttítla National Monument in northern California. Additionally, Padilla, Butler, and Representative Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.-25) introduced bicameral legislation earlier this year to create the Chuckwalla National Monument and expand Joshua Tree National Park while urging President Biden to designate the monument. Padilla’s Protecting Unique and Beautiful Landscapes by Investing in California (PUBLIC) Lands Act, legislation that would restore and expand protections for over one million acres of California’s public lands, advanced out of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Last month, Senator Padilla and Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.-24), along with Representatives Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.-19) and Julia Brownley (D-Calif.-26), welcomed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) announcement of their final environmental impact statement for the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, marking an important step toward the designation of the Sanctuary. Previously, Padilla and Carbajal wrote to NOAA and the U.S. Department of Commerce to express their strong support for swiftly designating the Sanctuary while facilitating the development of offshore wind energy.

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