President Trump's Construction Projects in D.C. Are Being Funded by National Park Entrance Fees
New analysis reveals that the Park Service is spending national park visitor fees on fountains and the reflecting pool in Washington, D.C.
According to a New York Times analysis of federal records, the National Park Service (NPS) is using at least $67 million in entrance-fee revenue to help pay for President Trump’s Washington beautification push.
Almost $60 million is going toward repairs of nine ornamental fountains in the capital. Another $7 million is funding the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, part of a $13.1 million project that’ll turn the pool into “American flag blue.”
Technically, this is all legal.
As per the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which was enacted in 2004 during the George W. Bush administration, “at least 80% of the annual revenue collected is to be retained and used at the site where it was generated.” The remaining 20 percent can be allocated to other sites “at the agency’s discretion,” including those that do not collect entrance fees, such as the National Mall and Memorial Parks.
But legality is not the same as proper use. And in this case, the use deserves scrutiny.
National park entrance fees are paid by families waiting in line at Yellowstone, hikers arriving at Glacier, retirees driving into Grand Canyon, photographers entering Acadia, and travelers from around the world coming to experience “America’s best idea,” who now pay $100 to enter our most popular national parks.
Those fees are supposed to support the park system. They are supposed to help repair trails, restrooms, water systems, campgrounds, roads, visitor centers, and historic structures. They are not supposed to become a convenient cash drawer for presidential spectacle.
That distinction matters because the National Park Service is not short on real needs.
At the end of fiscal year 2025, its deferred maintenance backlog was officially estimated at $24 billion, though Interior Secretary Doug Burgum revealed that it totaled $35 billion during a House testimony last month.
Whichever number is actually correct, it’s a number that’s almost too large to picture, so it helps to translate it into actual places.
At Shenandoah National Park, stone walls along Skyline Drive are crumbling. At Acadia, paved roads and buildings are waiting for maintenance funding. At Crater Lake, the Rim Drive desperately needs repair, employee housing has been closed because of mold, and staff are waiting for modern emergency vehicles. At Grand Canyon, water systems break down on a regular basis. At Mount Rainier, historic buildings are in dire need of upgrades. At Zion, a failed sewer system has left scenic areas dependent on port-a-potties where there should be working comfort stations.
These aren’t aesthetic preferences. They’re visitor safety, employee housing, sanitation, emergency response, and basic public access.
None of that means that Washington’s parks are unworthy of care. The National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, Meridian Hill Park, Lafayette Park, and the capital’s many fountains and civic landscapes belong to the American people too. And they’ve been neglected in their own way—by several administrations, both previous and current.
Anyone who values public lands should also value public spaces in cities, especially in a capital where so many of the most important places remain free to enter.
In fact, the National Mall and Memorial Parks have a staggering $1.3 billion in deferred maintenance and repairs backlog, which has accumulated due to years and years of inadequate funding, for which several different Congresses have been responsible.
There is a fair argument that repairing the Meridian Hill fountain, dry since 2019, is a legitimate use of national park money. There is a fair argument that the Reflecting Pool should be ready for the country’s 250th anniversary. There is even a fair argument that Washington’s underfunded urban parks deserve more attention than they usually receive. Their maintenance backlog is insane.
But that’s precisely the point: they deserve regular, transparent, adequately funded care—not a sudden flood of money because a president wants the city polished on his timeline, to be ready for his 80th birthday on June 14.
The Times found that between December 2025 and March 2026, more than three-quarters of the Park Service’s recreation-fee funds went to the Washington fountains alone, and more than 90 percent went to D.C.-based projects overall. (To be clear: that’s about 75% and 90% of the 20% of entrance fee money available for non-fee-charging park sites.)
I’ll repeat that: 90% of eligible funds collected through national park entrance fees were used for projects near the White House. The other 10% had to be spread out across dozens of other National Park Service sites elsewhere in the country.
Historically, Washington projects accounted for only a small fraction of that spending—5% or less during both the Biden and first Trump administrations. In recent months, as the nation’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday approaches, that’s grown to 90%.
This isn’t routine stewardship. It’s a dramatic redirection of funds—toward hand-picked priority improvements in the capital, and away from other, equally as important maintenance projects elsewhere in the park system.
And, of course, it comes with an unmistakable political frame. Trump has made no secret of his desire to remake Washington in his own image, with beautification projects, commemorative displays, and grand patriotic staging ahead of July 4, 2026.
I wrote about the proposed “Arc de Trump,” the ultimate presidential vanity project, which would sever the symbolic sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery just a few days ago.
The real danger of this new development is that the Park Service becomes the mechanism through which public money, collected across the country from Americans and foreign visitors alike, is converted into presidential branding.
“Our parks and public lands have been underfunded for decades, and there are many genuinely urgent projects in need of funding across the country,” Aaron Weiss, Executive Director of the Center for Western Priorities, told the Times. “Instead, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is determined to divert millions of dollars to projects that President Trump can see out his window.”
The National Park Service should not be forced into this kind of trade-off. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool should be maintained. That’s not up for debate. But whether it should be repainted in a particular color the president likes, by a company that got a no-bid contract to do so, must be questioned, scrutinized, and investigated.
Zion’s sewer system also deserves repair and upgrades. So do Crater Lake’s ranger housing and emergency vehicles. So do Acadia’s roads. So do Shenandoah’s historic walls. So do Grand Canyon’s water systems. So do countless other parks and facilities across the nation.
The problem is not that national park sites in Washington are now being cared for. The problem is that the rest of the system has been asked, again and again, to make do with less.
Nowhere is this as visible as in the Trump administration’s own fiscal year 2027 budget request.
Among many other massive cuts, the request includes a 44% reduction to the line item for “construction, improvements, repair, or replacement of physical facilities, and compliance and planning.” They want to reduce that budget from $88 million to just $49 million.
The administration’s requested budget for the entire National Park Service would be reduced by $760 million, or a 26% cut.
In the same budget, they asked for a fund of $10 billion to create a “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” for “construction and beautification projects in and around Washington, D.C.”
For the record, that’s 10,000 million dollars for the president’s preferred “beautification projects.”
“As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, the administration is undermining the very places that safeguard our history and heritage,” said John Garder, Senior Director of Budget and Appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Our national parks are not political pawns. They are part of who we are, and they must be protected now and for generations to come.”
Thanks for reading!
See you on our public lands and waters,
Bram
Image 1: NPS / Jacob W. Frank
Image 2: NPS / Cortney Gjesfjeld
Image 3: NPS / Kirstin Wilson
A coincidence that this administration dropped the reservation system that limited park admissions?
JFC