Biden is creating new national monuments to protect land in Nevada and Texas

Avi Kwa Ame, also known as Spirit Mountain, as seen across the desert from an area near the Castle Mountains in February 2016. President Biden is declaring the area as a national monument. (Zuma Press, Inc./Alamy)

President Biden on Tuesday proclaimed two vast swaths of land — Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada, and Castner Range in West Texas — as national monuments, a designation that preserves a total of more than 500,000 acres of land from new development.

"We're protecting the heart and the soul of our national pride. We're protecting pieces of history, telling our story that will be told for generations upon generations to come," Biden said at a conservation summit.