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Last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order directing all 433 national park sites to post signs asking visitors to report any posted information that tells a negative story about the site or its history. Burgum's order implements a March 27 executive order from President Donald Trump titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
The order also applies to other Interior agencies that manage sites open to the public, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to the order, Interior agencies must identify properties that contain depictions or other information that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” and replace this with “content that focuses on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
The order could impact the educational content at sites that chronicle dark moments of U.S. history, including places like Amache National Historic Site in Colorado, where over 10,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated from 1942 to 1945, and Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, which commemorates the forced relocation of the Cherokee people after Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
“These signs could have a chilling effect on rangers just trying to do their jobs and tell the truth. When the Trump administration tries to rewrite American history, it is the American people who will suffer most,” said Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Trump administration approves its first fast-tracked mining project in just 11 days
On Friday, the Trump administration officially authorized the relaunch of operations at Velvet-Wood Mine, a uranium mine in southeastern Utah, marking the first use of a fast-tracked 14-day environmental review process. The authorization came just 11 days after the Interior department ordered the Bureau of Land Management to review the mine’s environmental impacts within 14 days. Previously, the environmental review process would likely have taken months or years. The accelerated environmental assessment “alternative” was launched by the Trump administration in response to the president’s previously declared “energy emergency.”
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[Chuckwalla National Monument] is one of those places that, once you develop, we can’t get back. So it feels especially insulting that an out-of-state special interest group would want to come in and undo that when Californians have really worked for years to get this win for the community.”
