By Mark Landler and Julie Turkewit
President Obama on Friday designated three new national monuments in the California desert, a 1.8-million-acre landscape of mountain ranges, lava flows, Joshua trees and sand dunes that nearly doubles the amount of public land he has protected as president.
The designations were a project of Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. She asked Mr. Obama last summer to use his powers under the Antiquities Act, a 110-year-old law, to create the monuments after legislation to protect the lands was thwarted by feuding between environmentalists, mining companies and hunters.
