National Parks Conservation Association v. U.S. Department of the Interior

The First Circuit Court of Appeals granted the U.S. Department of the Interior and other federal defendants’ (together, the Department) motion for a stay pending appeal of a district court preliminary injunction enjoining the defendants from implementing the Secretary of the Interior’s May 2025 order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The Secretary’s order implemented President Trump’s executive order of the same name and required review of interpretive materials at National Park Service sites to identify whether they “contain images, descriptions, depictions, messages, narratives or other information (content) that inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), or, with respect to content describing natural features, that emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur of said natural feature,” and to remove or replace such materials. Plaintiff organizations alleged that removed materials included exhibits and signs regarding climate change and its impacts at the New York Gateway National Recreation Area, Glacier National Park, Fort Sumter, and Acadia National Park. The First Circuit found that the Department made a strong showing that it was likely to succeed on the merits in its appeal of the preliminary injunction because the district court erred in determining that the plaintiffs would likely suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief. The First Circuit found that the district court relied on alleged harms to the plaintiff organizations’ members but that the plaintiffs’ declarations alleged, with one exception, only general—not specific—harms to their members’ aesthetic, recreational, and information interests, and that the one alleged specific harm was premised on the removal of material at parks where no changes had been made. The First Circuit also found that some of the district court’s findings regarding irreparable harm were “not sufficiently connected to any specific harms likely to be experienced by the plaintiffs” because of the order. The court also stated that findings of harm to the public were not relevant to the question of whether the plaintiffs suffered irreparable harm. The First Circuit noted that the plaintiffs also alleged organizational harms on which the district court did not rely for its irreparable harm determination, but the First Circuit further noted that the plaintiffs did not show how the harms were traceable to the Secretary’s order. The court further found that the Department met its burden of showing that it would be irreparably injured absent a stay, that the plaintiffs did not show that a stay would cause them substantial injury, and that the public interest factor did not require denial of the stay given the Department’s likelihood of success on the merits.

On June 23, 2026, the First Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay of the portions of the order enjoining the defendants from implementing the Secretary’s order, directing the defendants to restore and reinstall interpretive materials, enjoining further alterations to interpretive materials, and requiring weekly status reports. The First Circuit left in place the district court’s stay of the Secretary’s order. The First Circuit said it would “promptly” rule on the request for a stay pending appeal.