Tag Archives: doug-burgum

Appeals Court stops judge’s order to restore signs at Acadia

In a victory for the Trump administration, the US Court of Appeals in Boston on Thursday granted a temporary block of a federal judge’s order to restore signs on climate change, civil rights, and diverse communities at Acadia National Park and other national parks around the nation.

The Appeals Court decision also clears the administration to move ahead with extracting signs and displays on climate change, black history and other items that could “inappropriately disparage Americans,” as described in the president’s executive order, jeopardizing exhibits at the Nature Center at Acadia and an exhibit at the Schoodic Institute for being cleared. The lower court judge had ordered the administration to stop taking further action to remove interpretive materials pending further litigation in the matter.

The Appeals Court agreed to a request by the Interior Department and the National Park Service and granted a stay on US District Court Judge Angel Kelley’s June 12 order to reinstate the signs at Acadia and other parks by July 3.

The National Park Service stored away 10 signs, including nine on climate change and one on the Wabanaki tribe, behind a building after the Trump administration ordered them removed from Cadillac Mountain and the Great Meadow.

These 10 tripod signs, including nine on climate change and one on the Wabanaki tribe, stored last year behind a building near outhouses and an old canoe by Acadia National Park, can remain hidden for now as a result of a US Court of Appeals ruling. The signs were put out of sight after the Interior secretary ordered them removed from Cadillac Mountain and the Great Meadow, saying they promoted improper partisan ideology.

The decision is a victory for the US Interior Department and the National Park Service and a defeat for the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, including the National Park Conservation Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, which filed a lawsuit against Interior and the NPS in February, alleging Interior and the NPS violated certain federal laws by ordering the materials and signs at Acadia to be taken down.

The Appeals Court said that the Interior Department “met its burden” in asking for the stay of the order to restore 10 tripod signs at Acadia and interpretive items at other parks. Continue reading →

Judge orders NPS restore signs on climate change at Acadia

A federal judge in Massachusetts is ordering the Trump administration to reinstall signs that warn of climate change at Acadia National Park, and that mark the significance of Cadillac Mountain to the Wabanaki people, saying their removal set a dangerous precedent of censorship.

The signs at Acadia were among hundreds of interpretive materials removed by the administration of President Donald Trump from national parks across the country in a move partly aimed at eliminating “improper partisan ideology” at parks. Six signs were removed from Cadillac and four from the Great Meadow.

US District Court Judge Angel Kelley also is prohibiting the administration from removing any more signs or interpretive materials at National Park Service sites. She wrote that the actions set “a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization” of climate change at Acadia and educational materials at other national parks.

The National Park Service stored away 10 signs, including nine on climate change and one on the Wabanaki tribe, behind a building after the Trump administration ordered them removed from Cadillac Mountain and the Great Meadow.

Signs about climate change at Acadia and the significance of Cadillac to the Wabanaki people, squirreled away behind a building along with old canoes and toilets after a 2025 Trump administration order, may soon be restored atop Cadillac and along the Great Meadow.

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Sign of times? Acadia signs on climate change removed, hidden

Once posted on popular trails on Cadillac Mountain and along Great Meadow, large Acadia signs on climate change are now stored out of sight, crowded behind a corrugated metal building, next to a roll of chain link fencing, a beat up canoe and a couple of portable toilets.

The National Park Service stored away 10 signs, including nine on climate change and one on the Wabanaki tribe, behind a building after the Trump administration ordered them removed from Cadillac Mountain and the Great Meadow.

The National Park Service hid away 10 tripod signs, each with 3 informational panels, including nine signs totally on climate change and one sign with one panel on the Wabanaki tribe and two panels on climate change. The signs were found behind a corrugated metal building near old toilets, canoes and a spare roll of chain link fencing. The signs were put here after the Interior Secretary ordered them removed from Cadillac Mountain and Great Meadow. Oct. 5 photo

Once part of Acadia’s public policy effort to educate visitors about the impact of climate change on the park’s summits and shoreline, the signs are a casualty of the Trump administration’s view that the climate crisis is “the greatest con job.”

Under order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service at Acadia National Park in mid-September removed 10 cedar-framed tripod signs, each typically with three separate informational panels on it.  Most of the panels on the signs focused on the effects of climate change, but one panel on a tripod sign that had been on Cadillac celebrated Wabanaki history.

The removals came just before President Donald Trump called the climate emergency “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world ” during a speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23.

Todd Martin, northeast senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the Department of Interior sent a letter to Acadia staff, indicating the Acadia signs on climate change were not in compliance with an executive order by Trump on March 27, called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Interior ordered the park to remove the Acadia signs on climate change, Martin told us.

Burgum issued his own executive order on May 20 with rules to implement the provisions of Trump’s order on federal lands managed by the Department of Interior.

A couple of reporters in early October found the climate change signs stacked behind a little-known building at Acadia, along with portable toilets, canoes and old equipment. The reporters visited the site on a hunch with no knowledge or tip that the signs were actually behind the building.

The history of the Wabanaki tribe took a hit when the Trump administration ordered this sign removed from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. Photo taken on Oct. 5.

A sign that recalls the special ground of the Wabanaki tribe on Cadillac Mountain is now squirreled away in a dark place behind a building at Acadia National Park, along with signs on climate change. Under an order in May by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the signs were taken down by the NPS as part of a nationwide sweep, partly to rid national parks of displays that “perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history.” Oct. 5 photo

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