Heinrich on Senate Floor: President Trump is dumbing down our history and cheapening our National Parks. But he will not take our history from us.

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led his colleagues in delivering remarks on the Senate floor in condemning and drawing attention to the Trump administration's efforts to erase American history from public lands. Heinrich's remarks follow his letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) demanding answers about its efforts to remove signage referencing the nation's history from National Parks Service (NPS) sites.

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine), Ranking Member of the U.S. Energy Subcommittee on National Parks, and U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, joined Heinrich in delivering remarks on the floor.

VIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, delivers floor speech on Trump administration efforts to erase history on public lands, March 11, 2026.

"Not every chapter in this story is uplifting-but to understand who we are as Americans, and our journey to become what Ronald Reagan called a 'shining city upon a hill,' we have to learn from all of it," said Heinrich. "We can't erase or turn away from the hard parts. Because those parts, and how we learned and grew from them, are our shared history, and they should never be erased or twisted for politics. But that's just what the Trump Administration is trying to do-to censor our history."

"These lands - from Historical Parks and Historic Trails, to National Parks, Monuments, and Wilderness Areas - these lands hold the echoes of our ancestors. They hold the good and the bad. And knowing makes us stronger," continued Heinrich.

"President Trump is dumbing down our history. He is cheapening our National Parks. But he will not take our history from us. We will tell these stories again and again, long after HE is relegated to the history books. And knowing the truth makes us stronger," concluded Heinrich.

A video of Heinrich's floor speech can be found here.

A transcript of Heinrich's remarks as delivered is below:

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me start off by pointing out that New Mexico is home to one of the most important living cultural landscapes in the United States.

You may have heard of it - it's known as Chaco Canyon.

It's a World Heritage Site and a National Historical Park.

It is truly breathtaking.

If you've ever been there, and when you're there with the immense sky above, you feel like time is converging.

Centuries and centuries of history.

The bustling lives of farmers, architects, builders, astronomers and religious leaders, converging with the scurry of nearby wildlife and the hushed murmurs of respectful visitors.

And these are all layered onto each other in what, for many, remains a living, sacred place.

It is designated a National Historical Park to tell the stories of the people who lived on this land long before America was even a nation, and those who continue to use these lands to connect to a story bigger than any one person.

Every year, millions of Americans and international visitors alike learn parts of our nation's story through the places preserved and stewarded by the National Park System.

Places like Chaco Canyon.

These places tell the story of us.

How we became 'America', and how we have grown and changed as a nation.

It is a story of triumph, of hardship, of resilience, and, sometimes, of cruelty.

Not every chapter in this story is uplifting-but to understand who you are as Americans, and our journey to become what Ronald Reagan rightly called a "shining city upon a hill," we have to learn from all of it.

We can't erase or turn away from the hard parts.

Because those parts, and more importantly, how we learned and grew from them, are our shared history, our shared story, and they should never be erased or twisted for politics.

But that is just what the Trump Administration is trying to do - to censor our history.

One year ago, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review how National Park Sites portray American history.

The Executive Order required officials to make sure that Park Service sites did not display content that, quote, "inappropriately disparage(s) Americans past or living."

As a result of that Order, they've already removed some content, and much of it is in the most popular National Parks in the American West.

In a spreadsheet summarizing the Interior Department's first review last year, Mother Jones found that from 33 sites in the Park Service region that includes my state, 81 submissions had been flagged for review.

And of those 81, the Department decided that 46 should be altered or removed entirely - over half.

But this isn't only happening in the West.

Signs related to ecology and the Wabanaki cultural history were completely removed at Acadia National Park.

At Stonewall National Monument in New York, mentions of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera - pioneering activists central to the 1969 Stonewall uprising - were scrubbed completely;

And this photo, showing what enslaved people experienced at the hands of their enslavers.

Let that photo sit with you for just a moment.

This photo, which shows how painful our history can be, was ordered to be removed because it is, quote, "disparaging of Americans."

This is not disparaging.

This is truth. This is reality.

We cannot be a better nation or a stronger one if we ignore or hide from our own past.

We are a great nation because we have learned from our past, especially from our mistakes.

But we can't do that when we take photos down like this one.

And, unfortunately, this was just one of the Trump administration's attempts to h0llow out our American story.

Another came earlier this year when the Department of the Interior asked National Park staff to spend hundreds of hours reviewing their own exhibits to report signage that might be in violation of the Executive Order.

At Glacier National Park in Montana, mentions of climate change, of course, which is literally melting the very Glaciers the park was named after, those were erased.

And at Yellowstone, which was established on land from which the U.S. military forcibly removed Tribes, any mention of Native Tribes was ordered to be removed.

They're even asking visitors to report any material they find "offensive".

Well, Mr. President, I find THAT offensive.

Last June, the Trump administration instructed Park Service staff to post QR codes that visitors could scan to report signs they disagree with.

So far there has been little clarity on the process, and of course, zero public input.

But some brave public servants anonymously uploaded the list of reported violations to a public site.

Examples from across the country include the entirety of the Emmitt Till exhibit in Alabama...

...reviewing covers of books on the topic of slavery, including autobiographies...

...reviewing content in Junior Ranger Books about emancipation, the cause of the Civil War, and Freedmen's colonies, because it might be, quote, "disparaging of Americans."

So far, the Department has reviewed more than 2,000 pieces of media and has ordered the removal or alteration of hundreds of signs and exhibits.

And we know they aren't done.

So what more could be at risk in the coming days?

In New Mexico, we have park service signs that share Tewa translations.

That's a language that has been spoken in our part of the United States since long before the colonies were founded.

Because this language is a language other than English, these signs are at risk of removal.

Other park service signs in New Mexico include Spanish translations, and that should surprise no one, given our history under Spain and Mexico before being ceded to the United States in 1848.

In fact, New Mexico's state constitution recognizes Spanish as a protected language.

But because these signs have a language that is not English, under the Trump administration, they risk removal.

Other exhibits at risk aren't about language.

The Trump administration claims it is removing signs because they quote, "cast a negative light" on American history.

But Mr. President, this IS our history.

Someone just doesn't want our history to be told.

That is putting the telling of our history at risk.

It is, in fact, already under attack.

And that is straight out of the authoritarian playbook.

It should anger every single American listening today.

When we erase information about who we are... when we silence people's stories... we promote a narrative that ignores and manipulates what truly happened.

So let me tell you what they are trying to erase.

It is true that some of our forefathers founded this country on the enslavement of other human beings.

It is true that those human beings built much of this country, including the building we are standing in here today.

And we fought a civil war, and amended our constitution, and guaranteed rights to millions of Americans as a result of all of that.

Because we demanded better of our country and of ourselves.

It is true that some of our forefathers forced tribal people from their homes, making them walk hundreds of miles on death marches to resettle in small tracts of land far from the land that they knew.

And today, the daily work of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and the Indian Affairs Committees is to protect the rights and advance the well-being of some of those same Tribes.

Because we demanded better, of our nation and of ourselves.

It is true that this country did not apply the American values of democracy and justice equally in the beginning.

And that women, Black people, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, LGBTQ, and persons with disabilities, just to name a few, all had to struggle to gain the same rights as other groups of people.

Because they demanded better, of our nation and for all of us.

Like the stories of families that traveled over oceans like mine did, and traveled over mountains to be a part of the "American Dream" -

- The story of those fights are the stories of how America became the country that it is and how we will continue to lead.

The hardships, the pain, the suffering - they aren't false and they aren't fictions.

They made us stronger.

And they don't negate the progress we've made, or the pride that we take in our country as we continue to strive for a more perfect union.

Because every good story is rooted in place, I often say that public lands are the anvil on which our collective American identity was forged.

Because these lands preserve where much of that history happened.

These lands - from our historical parks, our historic trails, to our national parks and monuments and wilderness areas - these lands hold the echoes of our ancestors.

They hold the good, and the bad.

And knowing the truth makes us better, makes us stronger.

That's what makes us demand more for our country, more for ourselves.

New Mexico tells us this.

Take the story of the Manhattan Project in my home state. We now have a National Historic Park to tell that story.

But you can't tell that story of the dawn of the Atomic Age without telling the whole story.

Without recognizing the people from our New Mexico communities whose health was sacrificed to build those powerful devices.

You can't hold up the amazing scientific advances made under J. Robert Oppenheimer's supervision without also telling the story of his political persecution and the removal of his clearance.

George Orwell predicted a lot of things, and he once wrote: "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

Right now, President Trump is dumbing down our history.

He is cheapening our National Parks.

But he will not take our history from us.

We will tell these stories again and again, and again. As long as it takes, and long after HE is relegated to the history books.

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