House Democrats Urge Colleagues To Block Funding For Censorship In National Parks

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives' Interior appropriation committee were urged Thursday to block future funding for the Trump administration's work to censor materials in the National Park System.

"...this administration has undermined the integrity of our national park system and weakened the agency tasked with protecting our history. Cuts to NPS funding and staff have strained park maintenance and severely impacted the agency’s history preservation programs," reads a portion of the letter sent to the appropriators.

"Secretarial Order 3431 compounds the damage by imposing burdensome and partisan reviews on an already beleaguered workforce," it continues. "The Secretary’s intimidation tactics have injected additional confusion and burden on NPS staff and threaten to negate decades of work by NPS to represent a broader swath of American history."

The Secretarial order in question was issued by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last May and sought to "restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing."

That led to removal of materials and exhibits from national parks that the Trump administration sees as “disparaging Americans.” Materials that have been flagged or removed have included exhibits or signs on slavery, LGBTQ+ history, Indigenous history, climate change, and more.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, and 52 other House Democrats sent a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies asking that they not providing funding for that order to be carried out.

The letter (attached below) to Chair Mike Simpson and Ranking Member Chellie Pingree urged that they include language in the FY 2027 spending bill that would prohibit the use of any funds to implement, administer, or enforce the order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

“The order has led to the arbitrary flagging of thousands of interpretive signage and educational materials across public lands and historic sites and resulted in the alteration, and in some cases removal of historic exhibits across the National Park System and other Interior-managed sites,” the members write.

The Democrats claimed that the administration was “bypassing consultation with tribal nations and descendant communities and ignoring professional standards around historical interpretation." They added that there was a "growing pattern of political censorship stretching 'from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia to Muir Woods in California.'"

“True patriotism requires honest engagement with both our moments of achievement and those of moral failure,” the members write. “Sanitizing history undermines efforts to ensure that all Americans can see themselves reflected in these shared places.”

The members also note that the directive's reach extends well beyond the park system: “Federal pressure to 'restore truth and sanity' to American history has already begun to have a chilling effect on historic preservation efforts nationwide, as states, localities, and cultural institutions fear censorship and retribution from the administration.”

The letter came on the heels of the National Parks Conservation Association and a broad coalition of scientists, historians, and advocates filing for a preliminary injunction to halt and reverse censorship in national parks across the country.