The Department of the Interior is severing ties with 43 outside organizations and eliminating more than $4 million in planned funding after a sweeping internal review found the partnerships were "operating in direct opposition" to the agency's mission under Secretary Doug Burgum.
The department launched its review in March, combing through nearly 3,000 active agreements with roughly 2,000 outside groups, a sprawling web of NGOs, nonprofits, private entities, and educational institutions that had accumulated across multiple administrations. What officials found, they said, was a portfolio riddled with agreements that "did not appear to provide a clear benefit" or "did not align with the department's mission."
The result: 43 groups flagged for termination, their agreements canceled, their references scrubbed from DOI websites, and their funding pipeline shut off. The move, first reported exclusively by Fox News Digital, marks one of the most concrete steps yet in the Trump administration's broader campaign to root out DEI programs, curb environmental activism embedded inside federal agencies, and end taxpayer-funded services that benefit illegal immigrants.
The DOI press release obtained by Fox News Digital names several organizations singled out for their advocacy positions. The Hispanic Access Foundation, which offers scholarships for illegal immigrant Latino students, had worked with the National Park Service "to conduct a variety of educational and cultural support activities." Latino Outdoors, another group on the list, drew particular attention: the department said it had provided instructions on avoiding detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and had advocated against oil and gas development.
That combination, coaching people to evade federal law enforcement while opposing domestic energy production, captures the kind of mission conflict Interior officials say they set out to identify. The administration has made immigration enforcement a central priority, and the notion that a DOI partner was actively working to undermine ICE operations speaks to how deeply progressive advocacy had embedded itself inside the federal bureaucracy.
The American Alliance of Museums held a contract with the National Park Service to build DEI programs across national parks as part of the agency's Community Engagement initiative. The department also pointed to the group's Facing Change initiative, which promoted DEI efforts at museums. Conservation International was flagged for advocating a "total phase out of fossil fuels" and for statements describing fossil fuels as the "leading culprit" of planet-warming carbon emissions, along with its support for environmental justice and equity-focused climate policies.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, which held a master cooperative agreement with NPS "to conduct a variety of educational and cultural support activities," drew scrutiny for a different reason. The organization has opposed several administration initiatives, including suing over changes at the Kennedy Center, criticizing plans for a White House ballroom, and launching what it calls its "Landslide 2026: Erasing American History" initiative, a project highlighting cultural landscapes and historic sites it claims are threatened by administration actions.
In other words, a group with a cooperative agreement with the federal government was simultaneously suing that government and running a public campaign accusing it of erasing American history. The department decided the relationship had run its course.
Beyond those marquee names, the list of terminated partnerships includes the Green Schools Alliance, the Doris Duke Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, the California Native Plant Society, Clean Ocean Action, and the National Geographic Society, among others. The full roster of all 43 groups has not been publicly released.
The financial exposure is relatively modest in federal terms, more than $4 million in planned funding, but the signal matters more than the dollar figure. For years, these partnerships gave progressive organizations a direct pipeline into federal land management, national park programming, and agency policy. They operated with federal imprimatur and, in some cases, federal money, while pursuing agendas that ran counter to the priorities of the elected administration.
Matthew Middleton, the department's principal deputy communications director and director of research, framed the action in blunt terms. He told Fox News Digital:
"Under President Trump and Secretary Burgum, the Department of the Interior is taking decisive action to ensure its partnerships and resources support the priorities of this administration and the interests of the American people."
Middleton continued, making clear the three areas of conflict that drove the review:
"As part of that commitment, the Department is ending relationships with organizations whose advocacy for phasing out baseload energy, defunding law enforcement services, and promoting racially preferential programs directly conflicts with this administration's priorities. Interior will continue to invest in partnerships that expand access to public lands, promote responsible stewardship, and deliver tangible benefits to the American people."
The partnership purge fits within a broader pattern. The Trump administration has moved aggressively to dismantle DEI infrastructure across the federal government, strengthen immigration enforcement, and expand domestic energy development. Each of those priorities runs headlong into the advocacy positions of the groups Interior just cut loose.
The administration has faced resistance at every turn, from federal judges blocking executive actions to entrenched bureaucratic opposition within agencies themselves. But the Interior review represents a quieter, more methodical kind of housecleaning: identifying the formal agreements that gave outside advocacy groups a seat at the table inside federal agencies, then pulling the chair away.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Hispanic Access Foundation, Latino Outdoors, the American Alliance of Museums, Conservation International, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation for comment. No responses were reported.
The silence is notable. These organizations built their relationships with federal agencies over years, in some cases decades. They operated under cooperative agreements, contracts, and partnership frameworks that gave them influence over programming, education, and policy at the National Park Service and other Interior bureaus. Now they face not just the loss of funding but the removal of their names from DOI websites, a public disavowal.
The scale of the review itself tells a story. Nearly 3,000 active agreements with about 2,000 outside groups, that is the bureaucratic underbrush that had grown up inside a single cabinet department. Many of those agreements may be perfectly reasonable partnerships that serve the public interest. But the fact that 43 were identified as working against the department's own mission raises an obvious question: how did they get there in the first place?
The answer, in most cases, is that prior administrations shared the advocacy goals of these organizations. DEI programming, environmental justice, equity-focused climate policy, and services for illegal immigrants were not bugs in the system, they were features, deliberately embedded by officials who viewed those causes as part of Interior's mandate. The Trump administration disagrees, and it now has the receipts to prove the disconnect.
The president has pursued this kind of institutional realignment across multiple fronts, including pushing to remove officials he views as obstacles to his legislative agenda. The Interior action is less dramatic than a Capitol Hill confrontation but potentially more durable. Terminated agreements and scrubbed websites create facts on the ground that outlast any single news cycle.
Conservative critics of the administrative state have long argued that the federal government's partnership apparatus serves as a back door for progressive policy, a way to fund and legitimize advocacy organizations with taxpayer dollars while insulating them from democratic accountability. The Interior review offers a case study.
A group that coaches people on how to avoid ICE detention had a formal relationship with the National Park Service. An organization advocating for the total elimination of fossil fuels was partnered with the department that oversees federal energy leasing. A museum alliance was building DEI programs inside national parks. And a foundation was suing the administration while holding a cooperative agreement with it.
None of that happened by accident. It happened because the partnership system was designed to be opaque, self-perpetuating, and resistant to political change. The March review was the first systematic attempt to map the full landscape, and even then, 43 out of roughly 2,000 groups represents barely two percent of the total. The administration has signaled it will continue to scrutinize the remainder.
Meanwhile, the broader fight over federal priorities continues to play out across Washington, from Senate procedural battles to executive action in every major department. The Interior move may not generate the headlines of a Supreme Court ruling or a congressional showdown, but it strikes at something more fundamental: the web of institutional relationships that allowed progressive organizations to operate inside the federal government as if they owned the place.
The department says future partnerships will align with its actual mission. For 43 groups that spent years treating the Interior Department as an extension of their advocacy shops, that is a long-overdue eviction notice.
