The Massachusetts congressional delegation is demanding answers from the federal government after hundreds of arts grants under the National Endowment for the Humanities, including dozens earmarked for institutions in the Pioneer Valley, were canceled on the seeming recommendation of billionaire Elon Musk.

The delegation sent a joint letter, dated Monday and addressed to NEH Acting Chairman Michael McDonald, questioning decisions to cancel existing grants and eliminate grant awards in 2025. The letter states that during the week of April 1, the majority of NEH staff was placed on administrative leave on the apparent recommendation of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The letter also states McDonald reportedly told NEH leadership that up to 85% of the agency’s grants would be canceled and that there would be no grant awards in 2025.

“This shortsighted action will save the United States what amounts to ‘a rounding error in the U.S. budget’ but will harm people, organizations, and communities throughout the country,” the letter states. “We write to seek answers about why you are crippling an agency that punches so far above its weight and is essential to enabling access to libraries, museums, archives, historic sites and more for Massachusetts residents and Americans in every state.”

The letter was signed by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey as well as U.S. Reps. Jim McGovern, Richard Neal, Ayanna Pressley, Seth Moulton, Stephen Lynch, Lori Trahan, William Keating and Jake Auchincloss.

Created in 1965, the NEH is one of four sub-agencies under the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Since 2019, organizations located in Hampshire and Franklin counties have received more than $11 million in NEH grants. Many of those grants have gone to the Five Colleges for supporting various educational initiatives as well as local museums to support exhibits and operations.

NEH grants awarded in January have since been rescinded, including a $300,000 grant that went to the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association in Deerfield to produce a website detailing the life of African American poet Lucy Terry Prince. The museum learned of the grant’s termination earlier this month. PVMA Executive Director Tim Neumann has called the loss of the grant “a big disappointment” and said artists and designers hired for the project would lose their jobs.

Other local grants that had been scheduled to be given out this year include $45,000 to Smith College to help develop an interdisciplinary health, science and society major; a $171,000 grant to UMass Amherst to offer a two-week residency for 25 high school teachers to learn fundamentals of African American studies; and a $199,000 grant to Amherst College for a similar residency to discuss the “meanings, purpose and history of punishment in the United States.”

MassHumanities, the state’s NEH affiliate, is also based in the Pioneer Valley, having recently relocated to Holyoke after many years headquartered in Northampton. The affiliate’s Executive Director Brian Boyle said that $1.3 million, or around a third of MassHumanities’ annual budget, comes from NEH grants. MassHumanities had already withdrawn some of that money for the year, Boyle said, but still faces a $700,000 hole with the grants’ termination.

“I’m stunned and disappointed that the federal government is going back on a commitment that dates back 50 years and has benefited millions of people,” Boyle said in an interview. “I’m worried about a government willing to essentially kidnap funding and take away the tools that do make democracy possible under the excuse that efficiency is more important than our culture and our heritage.”

Boyle said MassHumanities was reaching out to past donors to ask for increased donations following the funding cuts, as well as try to find additional partners and private foundations to try and stabilize funding.

“A hit like this doesn’t save much money for the government, but it has an outsized impact on small libraries and museums and cultural organizations. That’s the thing that feels contrary to a healthy society,” Boyle said. “We’ll be able to figure out a way, but I do worry about the people who have been doing this work with a lot of courage and creativity over the last 50 years.”

The letter written by the delegation also included quotes from those who contacted their offices, including one Massachusetts researcher who reached out to Warren after their grant was terminated.

“It’s devastating to see [the funding] revoked so cavalierly and callously,” the researcher, who was not named in the letter, wrote. “I have to continue to support my family and pay our bills, including a mortgage.”

The letter ends with the delegation asking McDonald to respond to a series of inquiries by May 12, including how the agency decides the termination of existing funds, how many termination letters were sent to grantees that already completed scheduled work, and what funding the NIH plans to provide local and state humanities organizations going forward.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.