Rebuilding a sand trap may take more legal prep than Normandy, officials learn
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump’s plans to renovate East Potomac Golf Links have run into an obstacle familiar to anyone who has tried to build anything in the nation’s capital: the American federal government.
The project involves redesigning a century-old public golf facility, improving playing conditions and possibly attracting major championship tournaments. Unfortunately, the undertaking also involves trees, historic preservation, federal property and several hundred thousand pages of American procedural enthusiasm.
Federal Judge Halts Tree Removal at East Potomac
A federal judge has restricted further tree removal after hundreds of trees were cut as part of work at the site. According to the Associated Press, Judge Ana Reyes halted tree cutting until October 26, one day after a three-hour hearing in which she criticized the government over its actions during the holiday weekend, and she ordered three business days’ written notice before any irreparable change to the course.
The National Park Service has said it planned to remove more than 500 trees that do not contribute to the course’s historic landscape, and the Interior Department has defended the work as a way to restore the course’s historic character and reopen views of nearby landmarks, 7News reported. Preservationists argue that historic and environmental protections have to be respected. The administration has defended its actions and disputed aspects of the court proceedings.
These are serious legal matters. Nevertheless, Washington has shown a talent for turning the ordinary job of redesigning a golf course into an administrative process that could outlive the trees themselves.
Historic Preservation Review: Section 106 and NEPA Explained
Part of the delay comes from the review machinery itself. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requires federal agencies to consider the effects of their projects on historic properties, and East Potomac is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A separate law, the National Environmental Policy Act, can require anything from a short environmental assessment to a full impact statement when a federal agency proposes a major action.
So the first challenge is working out whether the course may be improved. The second is working out whether it may be improved without changing anything. The third is working out whether changing nothing would itself violate the requirement to improve the course.
By the fourth meeting, everyone has agreed that improvement is essential, provided it does not involve construction, removal, alteration, movement or the introduction of anything that wasn’t already there in 1920.
Washington’s Affectionate Relationship With Paperwork
This approach has preserved much of Washington’s institutional character, particularly its ability to spend three years studying a problem that somebody with a shovel could have handled.
The federal government has long kept an affectionate relationship with paperwork. There are preliminary reviews, environmental reviews, historic reviews, public comment periods, legal challenges and additional reviews of whether the previous reviews were reviewed properly.
Wendell Pruitt, a contractor from Fredericksburg who has bid on three federal landscaping jobs, said the golf course is the first project where he was asked to name the squirrels. “I told them Kevin,” Pruitt said. “They said that was a good start.”
Why NASA Never Had to Consult the Moon
An ordinary American might wonder how a civilization that put astronauts on the Moon can struggle to decide whether a golf course needs a new drainage system. The answer is that NASA worked under conditions considerably more favorable than those facing modern Washington contractors.
The Apollo 11 mission was built around a single national goal set by President Kennedy in 1961, and nobody insisted that Neil Armstrong hold a public consultation with the Moon before stepping onto it. Nobody demanded a historic preservation study of the original lunar dust. And nobody filed an emergency motion alleging that Apollo 11 had permanently altered a valuable celestial walking surface.
Under today’s regulatory atmosphere, the Eagle might still be orbiting the Moon while a federal committee debated whether landing counted as an environmentally significant disturbance.
Safeguards Versus Procedural Paralysis
The East Potomac controversy gives officials the latest chance to distinguish between necessary safeguards and procedural paralysis. Historic protections matter. The environment matters. Public access matters.
A government that removes hundreds of trees while arguing about whether it has finalized a plan creates understandable concern. But a government that cannot renovate an aging public facility without years of uncertainty has its own problem. Both observations can be true at once, a fact Washington traditionally treats as an unacceptable attempt at compromise.
The Squirrels Hold the Best Negotiating Position
The city’s squirrels, meanwhile, have become the unofficial beneficiaries of the controversy. They have occupied the park for generations without paying rent, property taxes or greens fees, which gives them a remarkably strong negotiating position.
A squirrel can bury an acorn in federal soil without submitting a permit application. A contractor trying to move that same soil may need fourteen signatures.
That imbalance has led to speculation that squirrels could become Washington’s preferred infrastructure developers. Their projects finish without federal appropriations, although nobody can remember where the materials were buried.
A Straightforward Question Nobody Has Answered
At the heart of the East Potomac dispute is a straightforward question: can the government improve a public asset while respecting the law, protecting historic amenities and preserving reasonable access?
That question deserves an answer based on evidence rather than bureaucratic ritual. Unfortunately, evidence often requires a study. The study requires funding. Funding requires congressional approval. And congressional approval requires finding at least one member of Congress willing to admit that another member might have a reasonable point.
The golf course could be finished long before that happens. By then, the squirrels may have incorporated themselves, hired attorneys and applied for designation as an endangered congressional constituency.
Five Humorous Observations
- We landed on the Moon in 1969 and we can’t move a pine tree in 2026 without a hearing. The Moon didn’t have a Section 106. It just had a flag and a lot of confidence.
- A squirrel buries an acorn in federal soil and nobody says a word. I put one tomato plant in a federal planter box and I got a letter.
- Three years to study a problem a guy with a shovel could handle. I know that guy. His name’s Ray. Ray’s available Thursday, and he takes cash.
- There’s a review of the reviews. That’s the part that gets me. Somewhere there’s a person whose entire job is checking whether another person checked properly. And somebody checks that person. It’s turtles all the way down, and each turtle has a lanyard.
- “Both things can be true at once” is the most dangerous sentence in Washington. People have been run out of town for less.
Editorial disclaimer: The golf course and the associated legal and public-access disputes are real. The political characters, bureaucratic adventures and comic dialogue are satirical treatments of those events, not reports of actual statements or proceedings. The newsroom attributes these stories to an entirely human collaboration between two sentient beings: the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer, neither of whom has ever successfully persuaded a golf ball to respect economic theory. The squirrels have since retained counsel and ask that all further questions about this disclaimer be submitted to our political satire department, in triplicate.
Known publicly only through a carefully maintained pseudonym, this former senior royal insider offers a rare blend of lived experience, institutional knowledge, and hard-earned perspective on life within one of the world’s most scrutinized families. Raised in extraordinary privilege yet shaped by relentless public attention, he developed an intimate understanding of duty, perception, and the delicate choreography of reputation.
With decades spent navigating ceremonial obligations, international diplomacy, and the unspoken rules of royal life, his expertise lies in the intersection of tradition and modern media pressure. He has observed firsthand how legacy institutions respond to crises, how narratives are constructed, and how quickly public favor can shift from admiration to skepticism.
His insights are informed not only by access, but by consequence. Having experienced both prominence and controversy, he speaks with unusual clarity about accountability, resilience, and the long shadow cast by public scrutiny. Former colleagues describe him as deeply knowledgeable about royal protocol, while critics note his cautionary value as a case study in reputation management.
Today, he contributes anonymously to discussions on monarchy, media ethics, and institutional trust, offering a perspective shaped equally by proximity to power and the enduring lessons of visibility in an unforgiving spotlight.
