The Biden administration on Monday agreed to settle four related lawsuits filed against the Trump administration that accused the federal government of illegally diverting taxpayer funds earmarked for other purposes, including military construction projects, to the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
As one part of the settlement, the Department of Homeland Security will provide $25 million to the state of California that will be used for conservation purposes in southern San Diego County. The executive director of a regional conservation group said the settlement delivered “a very meaningful and environmentally significant outcome for San Diego and its shared border with Mexico.”
The four federal lawsuits stemmed from then-President Donald Trump’s 2019 declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, which his administration used to justify the diversion of billions of federal dollars to constructing the wall. Before declaring that emergency, Congress had refused to fully fund the border wall construction, leading to a standoff that resulted in the longest government shutdown in history, according to the Associated Press.
To avoid another such shutdown, Trump signed a funding bill in February 2019 that included $1.4 billion of the $5.7 billion he had demanded for the wall. Days later, he issued the emergency declaration, which his administration used as justification to build the wall with money diverted away from the Department of Defense and Department of the Treasury.
The Trump administration during his four-year presidency built about 450 miles of “border wall system,” most of which involved building secondary barriers and replacing older, existing barriers. About 77 miles of that was built in California.
A coalition of states, including California, sued the Trump administration in 2019 and 2020, alleging the diversion of such funds was unlawful. The Sierra Club and Southern Border Communities Coalition also filed similar lawsuits.
Federal judges at the district and appellate court levels ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2019, declaring that the Trump administration was unlawfully diverting those funds and should stop building sections of the border barrier paid for by those funds. But that same year, the U.S. Supreme Court made a 5-4 ruling that the construction of those sections of the wall could proceed while the litigation was pending. The Supreme Court did not rule on the legality of diverting those funds to the border wall construction.
On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, he issued a proclamation ending the emergency declaration at the border. “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution,” he wrote in the declaration. “It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
With the emergency declaration ended, the Supreme Court sent the cases back to a northern California federal court, where the states and the other plaintiffs negotiated the settlements with the Biden administration that were announced Monday. The settlements do not include any terms that the sections of border wall built with the diverted funds must come down.
“The Trump Border Wall is officially a relic of the past, which is where it belongs,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Monday.
Bonta thanked the Biden administration “for working with us in good faith” and said the environmental mitigation projects made possible by the settlement “ushers in a new beginning.”
The Sierra Club said in a news release that the settlements include “critical measures to help mitigate the extensive damage done” by the border wall construction.
“The central provisions of the settlement are a commitment by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop further construction of the border wall in areas impacted by Trump’s illegal funds transfers, to mitigate harms to communities and wildlife caused by the construction, and to protect endangered and threatened animal species harmed by this border wall construction,” the Sierra Club said in its news release.
In the San Diego area, one of the biggest impacts will be the $25 million earmarked for local conservation efforts.
The money will most likely go toward The Nature Conservancy’s potential $60 million purchase of about 1,200 acres of land between Chula Vista and Jamul. In 2019, the Board of Supervisors approved a controversial development proposal for the area, but environmental groups challenged the project, known as Otay Ranch Village 14 or Adara at Otay Ranch. In 2021, a judge struck down the envisioned housing project, citing concerns about dangerous wildfires and contributions to climate change.
The Nature Conservancy, a global nonprofit group dedicated to fighting climate change by protecting natural habitats, is working toward purchasing and preserving the land instead of developing it, Cara Lacey, the director of wildlife corridors and crossings for The Nature Conservancy California, told the Union-Tribune on Monday.
The terms of the settlement stipulate the land would become part of the nearby San Diego National Wildlife Refuge. Lacey said her organization is putting together private and public funding sources to try to complete the purchase.
“We’re really confident that we’re getting there,” Lacey said, adding that the $25 million secured in the border wall settlement is “really exciting … and increases our confidence.”
Dan Silver, the executive director of Endangered Habitats League, one of the environmental groups that sued the county to stop the housing development, said the property in question is a “really critical connector piece” for wildlife in the region.
“There was going to be a development that would have obstructed movement to points both north and south, so this is a big step in maintaining the connectivity of the ecosystem,” Silver said.
Speaking to the bigger picture of the border wall settlements and the construction along the border, Silver said that “to some extent, the damage is done, and you don’t have the ability to go back to the way it was before.” But he praised the settlement “for delivering really meaningful benefits to conservation in San Diego.”
In a news release, Bonta said the settlements also include an agreement that DHS will “install small and large wildlife passages in the border barrier system for several endangered species.” The agreement allows gates to be installed in case “exigent circumstances arise or border security operations demand it.”
Also included in the settlement is $1.1 million to fund programs that monitor several federally endangered species, including the Peninsular Bighorn Sheep, Sonoran Desert Pronghorn, Mexican Gray Wolf, ocelot and jaguar, according to the attorney general.
“The Biden Administration also confirms in the settlement agreement that it has restored funding for military construction projects in the plaintiff states,” Bonta’s office said in a statement, adding that more than $427 million would be restored for those projects. That includes about $13.7 million for a project at a California Air National Guard Station.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
©2023 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
KeyWords:: 2306d4d2-feca-51a5-9201-eb9ec7d889f9
2306d4d2 feca 51a5 9201 eb9ec7d889f9
SD-SAN-DIEGO-GET-25M-FOR-CONSERVATION-LEGAL-SETTLEMENT-20230717
SD SAN DIEGO GET 25M FOR CONSERVATION LEGAL SETTLEMENT 20230717
