A new federal contract shows the administration is advancing a major reconstruction of a historic public course without consulting Congress or holding public meetings, top Democrats said Wednesday.
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A high-ranking House Democrat on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of quietly moving ahead with President Donald Trump’s plans to overhaul East Potomac Golf Links, pointing to a new federal contract for work related to the project that has not previously been disclosed.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said the contract, for the environmental and historic-preservation reviews needed to start work, was further evidence that the administration was advancing a major reconstruction of the historic public course without releasing its plans, consulting Congress or holding public meetings.
Huffman and four other Democratic lawmakers also sent a letter to the Interior Department and National Park Service on Wednesday, demanding the agencies turn over designs, cost estimates, funding plans and communications with the White House, Trump’s businesses and the architect Trump selected to redesign the course.
Though the president’s plans to overhaul East Potomac Golf Links were not on the agenda, Huffman also used a Federal Lands subcommittee hearing Wednesday to accuse the administration of quietly lining up contracts and tackling preliminary work so it could begin construction before Congress, the courts or the public could intervene. He compared the approach to the administration’s handling of Trump’s White House ballroom and proposed triumphal arch.
“We have seen this playbook too many times to sit up here and pretend that we don’t know where this is going and how this story ends,” he said.
Huffman’s remarks and the letter mark the most direct congressional challenge yet to Trump’s plans for the federally owned golf course. Preservation groups have challenged aspects of the administration’s work in federal court, and Democratic lawmakers have sent other letters seeking information, but the Republican-led Congress has held no hearing devoted to the project, and the Interior Department has provided few public answers.
The National Park Service awarded a $389,355 task order on Sept. 10 to Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, an engineering and planning firm based in Massachusetts, according to updated records on an online portal for government contracts. The company will help the agency comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act at the East Potomac course, according to federal procurement records.
“Democrats on this committee just learned that a couple of days ago the Park Service hired a company to start working on the historic public golf course at East Potomac Park,” Huffman said, “without any announcement, without a word to any of us, without a single public hearing.”
The contract does not authorize construction, but it represents the clearest indication to date that the Park Service has begun the formal review work that would be necessary before Trump’s redesign could proceed.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Interior Department said, “The full course design is yet to be finalized, so any type of cost estimate speculation over an advance notice of solicitation is premature and irresponsible especially from a Member of Congress.”
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Trump announced in June that work on the course would begin Sept. 1, but that date passed with the course still open and no visible signs that construction has begun. The administration has not released a design or initiated a public environmental review, though it has removed at least 150 trees, which it characterized as routine and deferred maintenance.
Government attorneys have said the administration intends to complete the required environmental, historic-preservation and planning reviews before beginning major construction.
The administration has also taken steps toward an extensive reconstruction of the failing sea wall around East Potomac Park, a project that would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The Park Service has said the sea wall needs to be replaced regardless of what happens to the golf course and that the two projects are proceeding separately. An NPS official said in a statement last week the sea wall is “independent of any proposals or discussions related to the golf course.”
But congressional Democrats say the long-failing sea wall is only getting attention because of Trump’s “vanity” golf project. In their letter Wednesday, Huffman and Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), Don Beyer (D-Virginia), Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting Park Service director Jessica Bowron to provide records explaining the relationship between the sea wall and golf course projects.
Huffman used unusually stark language to warn that the public course could become inaccessible to many of the people who now use it.
“What is happening right now, for those willing to see it, to open their eyes, is that Donald Trump is systematically moving to take this historic, publicly accessible resource and turn it into another gilded private golf club for the mega rich,” Huffman said. “That’s what’s going on here, folks. This is a methodical, deliberate effort to take a public park away from the people.”
East Potomac is among the busiest public golf facilities in the Washington area, drawing golfers to its three courses, driving range and miniature-golf course. The larger park is also heavily used by runners, cyclists, birdwatchers, fishermen and picnickers.
The administration has not said whether or how access to those recreational areas would change during construction or after the project is completed. During a visit to the course this summer, Trump was photographed carrying plans that appeared to extend the golf course to the edge of the peninsula and eliminate Ohio Drive, the roadway that loops around Hains Point.
“We’re going to keep dragging it all into the daylight until the public gets the answers we deserve,” Huffman said. “We are not going to let Donald Trump walk off with our public lands.”
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