We’ve received a lot of questions about Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing.
Here’s how the process is supposed to work:
1. Initial Proposal: The White House is managed by the National Park Service (NPS) but used by the Executive Office of the President (EOP). Any proposed change, even by a sitting president, begins internally through the Office of the Curator and the White House Facilities Management Division.
2. Historic Review: The NPS, as custodian of the White House under the Presidential Residence Act and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), must review all alterations for compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA. This requires assessing potential impacts on historic and cultural resources in consultation with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).
3. Planning & Environmental Oversight: The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) evaluates all major federal projects in the National Capital Region, including work on the White House grounds, for design, planning, and environmental impacts under NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). Public comment and design reviews are part of that process.
4. Aesthetic Review: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) reviews and advises on the design and appearance of any exterior modifications to the White House or its grounds.
5. Final Authorization: After approvals from NPS, NCPC, and CFA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House Chief Usher / Facilities Management Office finalize funding, scheduling, and logistics.
Only after completing this full process could any major construction or demolition legally begin.
Yet Trump ignored every step, acting unilaterally through executive order, bypassing oversight, and ordering demolition as if he were a monarch. The result: the people’s house, altered without the people’s consent.
More details:
Section 107, let’s talk about it.
The above process has always been the process taken, and here’s why.
Section 107 of the National Historic Preservation Act exempts the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court from being legally required to go through the Act’s formal Section 106 review. In other words, the law doesn’t automatically force those branches to follow the same procedures as other federal buildings. That exemption exists only because each branch of government controls its own seat of power, it was never intended as a free pass to ignore preservation, planning, or environmental rules altogether.
In practice, every administration since the 1960s has followed the same review structure out of duty, accountability, and executive-branch policy. The White House is still federal property, managed by the National Park Service under the Presidential Residence Act and subject to Executive Order 11593, which requires federal agencies to protect and consult on historic resources. Major exterior or site work still triggers National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) and U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) design reviews, along with NEPA environmental assessments. Any project involving government resources must also comply with the Anti-Deficiency Act and federal ethics rules on funding and gifts.
So yes, Section 107 means the NHPA can’t force compliance, but presidents are still bound by a network of executive orders, planning statutes, environmental laws, and constitutional duties. That’s why the process described isn’t optional, it’s the framework that has always protected the people’s house from unilateral or politically motivated alteration.
These executive orders:
- Executive Order 11593 (1971) – Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Environment - Requires all federal agencies (including the Executive Office of the President) to “locate, inventory, and nominate to the National Register all properties under their control” and to consult with the Secretary of the Interior before altering historically significant structures. (Demolishing part of the White House without such consultation would conflict with this order.)
- Executive Order 12148 (1979), delegates emergency and historic property responsibilities to the Department of the Interior, reaffirming that federal agencies must protect historic resources even when exemptions exist.
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