Interior Department severed funding partnership with Cultural Landscape Foundation after it sued over Kennedy Center, criticized ballroom

On June 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Interior, under Secretary Doug Burgum, terminated its master cooperative agreement with the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a preservation nonprofit that had worked with the National Park Service on educational and cultural-support activities. The termination came as part of a department-wide review, launched in March 2026, of nearly 3,000 active partnership agreements with roughly 2,000 outside organizations; the review resulted in the severing of 43 partnerships and the cancellation of more than $4 million in funding, with officials saying the cut agreements "did not appear to provide a clear benefit" or "did not align with the department's mission."

Unlike most of the 42 other groups cut in the same review, Interior specifically named the Cultural Landscape Foundation's opposition to administration initiatives as relevant context: the foundation had sued the Interior Department and National Park Service over changes at the Kennedy Center and the painting of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, publicly criticized plans for a White House ballroom, and launched a "Landslide 2026: Erasing American History" initiative documenting historic sites it says the administration threatens. Other organizations cut in the same purge, including the Hispanic Access Foundation, National Wildlife Federation, and National Geographic Society, were characterized by Interior as tied to DEI, environmental-justice, or immigration-related activity rather than to any specific criticism of the administration.