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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. Madam President, I rise to introduce Mojave National Preserve Boundary Adjustment Act.

The Mojave National Preserve Boundary Adjustment Act is a commonsense bill that would expand the Mojave National Preserve to include the land within the Castle Mountains National Monument.

The Mojave National Preserve, located in Southern California in the Mojave Desert, was established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, which was one of the late Senator Feinstein's signature achievements. Today, the Mojave National Preserve is one of the largest national preserves within the continental United States and plays an important role in safeguarding a diverse group of ecological habitats, mountains, and canyons in the region.

The adjacent Castle Mountains National Monument is surrounded on three sides by the Mojave National Preserve and is also home to important historic resources along with resident populations of and migratory corridors for desert bighorn sheep, quail, chukar, rabbit, mule deer, and other big game. Expanding the Mojave National Preserve to encompass Castle Mountains will simplify management of this vast desert landscape.

I am proud to work with a broad range of stakeholders to introduce this commonsense legislation to expand the Mojave National Preserve. Doing so would allow the National Park Service to further the conservation values and permanent protections in the Mojave Desert while boosting public access and outdoor recreation to the area.

I look forward to working with our colleagues to pass the Mojave National Preserve Boundary Adjustment Act as quickly as possible. ______

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