ACRA’s preservation partners are not normally name-checked on late night talk shows. Of course, these are hardly normal times, which may explain why Seth Meyers cited the National Trust for Historic Preservation as part of his April 27 show.

Why did the Trust rate a mention? As most folks know by now, the Trust has sued the Trump administration over its plans to build a massive ballroom on the site of the White House East Wing it demolished last year.

On April 25, a gunman broke through security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at a Washington hotel and opened fire before being subdued by the Secret Service. Thankfully, nobody was killed or seriously injured. But the incident caused the event to be cut short as top officials were scurried out and guests hid under the tables (excluding the one guest who continued eating his burrata salad).

Upon returning to the White House, President Trump used the incident to push for his ballroom: “And I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room and it’s a much more secure. . . .It’s drone proof, it’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom.”

He followed this by posting on Truth Social that the “ridiculous Ballroom lawsuit, brought by a woman walking her dog, who has absolutely No Standing to bring such a suit, must be dropped, immediately.”

As Meyers noted on his show (and ACRA can confirm), the National Trust is not, and never has been, a woman walking her dog. (There is an actual woman involved: a Trustee of the organization – a historian and historic preservation expert, author of six books on American architecture, and former senior historian at the Historic American Buildings Survey – who lives in the D.C. area and passes the White House regularly. She has avowed she would face “aesthetic injury” from the ballroom, which the Trust cites as one, but hardly the only, reason it has standing to sue. She does not own a dog.)

On Monday, the National Trust responded that they will not drop the lawsuit. In a statement, Trust President and CEO Carol Quillen said, “We are not planning to voluntarily dismiss our lawsuit, which endangers no one and which respectfully asks the Administration to follow the law. . . We have always acknowledged the utility of a larger meeting space at the White House. Building it lawfully requires the approval of Congress, which the Administration could seek at any time.”

Hours later, the Department of Justice filed a legal motion that was striking in its use of, well, Trumpian language. Signed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the government’s motion stated:

“’The National Trust for Historic Preservation’ is a beautiful name, but even their name is FAKE because when they add the words ‘in the United States’ to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it makes it sound like a Governmental Agency, which it is not. . .  They are very bad for our Country.  They stop many projects that are worthy, and hurt many others. . .

If any other President had the ability, foresight, or talents necessary, to build this ballroom, which will be one of the greatest, safest, and most secure structures of its kind anywhere in the World, there would never have been a lawsuit.  But, because it is DONALD J. TRUMP, a highly successful real estate developer, who has abilities that others don’t, especially those who assume the Office of President, this frivolous and meritless lawsuit was filed. Again, it’s called TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.  On top of everything else, this project is a gift to our Country from President Trump, and other Donors.  It is free of charge to the American Taxpayer.  Who could ever object to that?”

So where does this leave the ballroom project? While a federal judge has blocked construction, ruling that Congress needs to authorize the project, an appeals court blocked the blockage, allowing work to continue. Meanwhile, several Congressional Republicans, aligning themselves with Trump’s argument that the Correspondents’ Dinner incident demands a ballroom, have introduced bills to authorize it into law.

One group that has not aligned itself with the ballroom appears to be the U.S. public: a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted before and after the incident shows that 56 percent of Americans oppose the project, with only 28 percent in favor. Although the opposition may have more to do with the cost and secrecy over who’s funding it than architecture, it’s also clear that the President’s plans to remake Washington’s historic core, including a triumphal arch and repainting the reflecting pool on the Mall, are not going over well among the citizenry.

The desire to protect and preserve cultural resources transcends political affiliation, and even national boundaries. As a British citizen once put it, “Now, more than ever, it is vital that we engage with the knowledge of the past in informing not just the preservation of our historic built environment, but also the creation of sustainable, harmonious new communities.”

Coincidentally, that Brit happened to visit the United States last week: King Charles III, along with Queen Camilla, spent four whirlwind days visiting the colonies that exactly 250 years ago spurned his ancestor, George III. Charles’ friendly sojourn in America, once his family’s sworn enemy, shows that nothing is permanent. But it is up to the preservation community to make sure that, even as things change, we don’t lose sight of how we got here.

ACRA Offers Comments to Surface Transportation Board on NEPA Changes

ACRA has provided comments to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) about its proposed changes to its regulations governing compliance under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The STB regulates freight rail and other modes of transportation. Its proposed changes come after the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) last year rescinded its NEPA regulations and the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in the Seven Counties case limiting the scope of NEPA reviews.

In its comments, ACRA said it was encouraged by the fact that the Board planned to maintain provisions in the regulations regarding historic preservation reviews and reaffirmed the requirement that undertakings are subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

ACRA urged the Board to consider how its proposed definition of “effects or impacts” would align with the existing definition of “effects” in the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s 800 regulations, and asked it to consider additional language in the final rule that would more clearly ensure that the effects of both noise and vibrations from transportation projects on historic properties are considered.

NRC Codifies Generic EIS for New Reactors

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has taken steps to codify its Generic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Licensing of New Nuclear Reactors. The plan uses a technology-neutral framework and plant/site parameters to determine “which environmental impacts would be common to the construction, operation, and decommissioning of many new nuclear reactors, and thus appropriate for a generic analysis [Category 1], and which potential environmental impacts would be unique, and thus require a project-specific analysis [Category 2].”

The NRC states that  “Both construction and operation of a new nuclear reactor have the potential to affect historic and cultural resources. The NRC would need to complete a project-specific consultation in accordance with section 106 . . . as part of its environmental review. Therefore, these two issues are Category 2 issues, and thus require project-specific evaluations.”