Building the National Garden of American Heroes

The order amends Executive Order 13934 to expand and finalize the list of approximately 240 historically significant Americans — from George Washington and Frederick Douglass to Kobe Bryant and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — whose statues are to be featured in the National Garden of American Heroes. It directs the Secretary of the Interior to identify a suitable site and proceed with construction to the extent authorized by existing or future law. It also directs the Chairpersons of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to target spending one-twelfth of their agencies' discretionary funds on commissioning statues for the Garden.

The order requires the Interagency Task Force to publish an annual public report tracking construction progress and listing statues commissioned or placed, until the Garden is fully established. It broadens the definition of "historically significant American" to include any individual who made substantive contributions to America's public life or had a substantive effect on its history, and it removes a prior cross-reference restriction that had conditioned site options on certain subsidiary requirements.

The Department of the Interior, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Interagency Task Force are directed to act. Artists and sculptors who may receive federal commissions and the general public who would visit the completed park are also reached by the order's directives.

The NEA and NEH are now directed to steer one-twelfth of their discretionary budgets toward Garden statues, which could affect how much funding is available for other arts and humanities grants. The Interior Department must actively pursue a construction site, moving the project from planning to implementation.

The Secretary of the Interior leads site selection and construction, constrained by existing appropriations and statutory authority. The NEA and NEH Chairpersons allocate the one-twelfth funding share in consultation with their respective advisory councils and the Task Force. Progress is tracked through annual Task Force public reports that must list all statues commissioned or installed. No hard construction deadline is set; the reporting obligation continues until all listed statues are in place. The order's implementation is expressly subject to available appropriations.