Donald Trump Announces Plan to Add Ballroom onto White House Property

After signing a record number of various bills and passing the BBB, President Donald J. Trump has just announced his latest project.

Despite some odd project announcements, President Trump has announced one that seems relatively normal. The President aims to redecorate and refurnish the White House before the end of his term.

Mr. Trump aims to simultaneously preserve the historic nature of the building while also adding on another ballroom off the White House’s East Wing. The project will involve constructing a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot state ballroom. If all goes well, the ballroom will be completed “well before” 2029, which will be the end of Mr. Trump’s term.

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires federal agencies to assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek consultation through a formal review process. The act may have prevented this development, but the White House, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol, and any “related buildings and grounds” are all exempt from this rule.

As a semi-replacement for the National Historic Preservation Act, the White House has its own committee, The Committee For the Preservation of the White House, which dispenses “preservation and the interpretation of the museum character” related advice on the state of the buildings. The Committee For the Preservation of the White House is chaired by the director of the National Park Service, and the committee itself is made up of several federal officials and many people appointed by the president. The committee can only dispense advice, not orders, and any warnings or messages it sends can still be ignored by the president.

Richard Longstreth, a former professor of American studies at George Washington University, said that the renovation may “Do some harm to the property overall.”

Mr. Longstreth also remarked that “There aren’t any checks and balances here, unfortunately.”