Huffman, 52 House Democrats Call on Appropriators to Defund Trump's Censorship of American History at National Parks
Washington, D.C. – Today, Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) led 52 other House Democrats in calling on House appropriators to block funding for Secretarial Order 3431, the Trump administration directive that has led to the removal of historical exhibits and educational materials about slavery, Indigenous peoples, and climate change from national parks and public lands across America.
In a letter to Chair Mike Simpson and Ranking Member Chellie Pingree of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, the members urged inclusion of 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 letter warns that the administration is “bypassing consultation with Tribal Nations and descendant communities and ignoring professional standards around historical interpretation." The members point to 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.”
Background
Today's letter is the latest action in a sustained campaign by Natural Resources Committee Democrats to hold the administration accountable for censoring American history. In August 2025, Huffman led 12 colleagues in a letter warning that the administration's executive and secretarial orders were leading to the attempted erasure of historical content across the National Park System. In September 2025, Huffman grilled NPS officials at a committee hearing, calling the removal of slavery-related content "pure propaganda" and "un-American." In January 2026, Committee Democrats sent a formal oversight letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum demanding answers about the systematic removal of exhibits on slavery and climate change from parks nationwide. Burgum has failed to respond to any of these inquiries. In February 2026, Committee Democrats ran a hearing about Freedom 250’s role in the whitewashing of history.
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