Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told senators Wednesday that the Trump administration’s proposal to set aside $10 billion to fix up national park sites in Washington won’t pay for the president’s proposed triumphal arch.
President Donald Trump wants to build a 250-foot arch to rival Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in a traffic circle near the Potomac River. But it remains unclear how that project, as well as other legacy-defining architectural proposals the president is advancing in Washington, will be funded.
Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Burgum said the “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” proposed in the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget won’t be used to bankroll new monuments in Washington. The $10 billion pot of money — described in budget documents as necessary to “rehabilitate historic buildings and landscapes, and enhance architectural grandeur” in the nation’s capital — is intended to address existing maintenance needs, he said.
“No dollars that are in that project are for future, theoretical, proposed projects,” Burgum said.
