July 3, 2026 - On Thursday, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks submitted the following tp the National Capital Planning Commission:
ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION – NO HARD COPY TO FOLLOW
July 2, 2026
National Capital Planning Commission
Subject: Item #8778 – Proposed approval of preliminary and final site and building plans for new Monumental Arch
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (Coalition) is comprised of more than 5,000 members, all of whom are retired, former, or current National Park Service (NPS) employees or volunteers who collectively represent more than 50,000 years of national park management and stewardship experience. The Coalition studies, educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation of America’s National Park System.
The National Park Service conserves and maintains our country’s most important historic properties for the long-term education and benefit of the American people and other citizens of the world. These sites include National Capital Area parks, such as the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Memorial Circle, site of a proposed monumental arch. Our organization has previously expressed concern about this proposal to you and to the Commission of Fine Arts. We have also commented to the NPS, during open public comment on its recently completed Assessment of Effects, about our serious concerns with the hasty and insufficient planning for this proposal. We urge you to postpone approval of submitted site and building plans, the siting and design of which disregard, and we believe denigrate, numerous other carefully designed and now-historic landmarks in our nation’s capital.
The NPS failed, in its recently completed environmental assessment (EA), to persuasively present a rationale for why the nation needs what it calls a “triumphal arch.” The assessment downplays—without any opportunity for public input or comment—the disruptive effects of months-long, 20-hour-per-day construction on residents of the capital, and especially to visitors, most notably veterans and their families, whose loved ones are or will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery. The proposed design of the arch, with a height overwhelming that of the White House and the U.S. Capitol, would break the sight line between the 99-foot-tall Lincoln Memorial and the ceremonial entrance to the cemetery, which symbolizes the post-Civil War bridging of the North and the South. We believe that neither the mass nor the scale of a grandiose arch befits the solemnity of the existing, low-profile viewscape linking the National Mall to some of our most hallowed ground honoring heroes who selflessly served their country.
We also find that the EA is silent on mention of safety concerns or potential mitigations related to the height of an arch within two miles of Reagan National Airport. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations require structures that exceed 200 feet and are located at a site that potentially interferes with airspace be subject to review. The FAA recently released a preliminary feasibility study and reported no significant adverse effect on airspace and visual/instrument procedures at one of the busiest airports in the nation, but admits that a full aeronautical study would need to be completed before construction of an arch. They mention that such a tall structure would likely need to be lit with red obstruction lights, and these specifics and potential effects from them are not detailed in the NPS EA.
The NPS did, in its June 2026 Assessment of Effects Report required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), admit that the proposed arch would affect twenty-two historic properties within the identified area of potential effect. They determined that the project would have direct adverse effects on fourteen historic sites, including the Arlington Memorial Bridge, Arlington National Cemetery, and Arlington House; the Lincoln Memorial; the National Mall; the Washington Monument; the Pentagon; the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Grove; the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, and several cultural landscapes surrounding some of those sites as well as the Lady Bird Johnson Park and Memorial Avenue Corridor. In neither the environmental assessment nor the assessment of effect does the NPS sincerely consider any alternative locations for a new monumental arch. Nor does the proponent offer alternative designs, heights, or massing, although the simulated views shown in images 7, 9, and 13 of the EA clearly demonstrate the adverse effect a new 250-foot-tall arch would have on existing historic and iconic views across the Arlington Memorial Bridge and along the Potomac River.
NPS’ longstanding practice under Section 106 has been to avoid or minimize adverse effects on historic properties. If that is not possible, managers and consulting parties resolve such adverse effects through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The NPS, however, includes with its environmental assessment a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), despite the acknowledged adverse effects on many historic properties of obvious national importance. Then the FONSI admits that, because NHPA compliance is incomplete, the NPS will issue a separate stand-alone decision document at a future date. We believe that the NPS’ admission of direct adverse effects, and more indirect effects on additional cultural properties, warrants preparation of an environmental impact statement with an associated public comment period of at least forty-five days as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA.)
In addition, this proposed arch ignores other legislation. The Commemorative Works Act of 1986 requires such new works on federal land in the District of Columbia to be preceded by a careful, deliberative planning process involving approval by the U.S. Congress. We urge the National Capital Planning Commission to await more thorough analysis and public input prior to approving designs and a site location for a commemorative arch to the historic landscape of Washington, D.C.
The 250th anniversary of our nation is truly a very special event. Americans and visitors from around the world look with awe and reverence to National Park Service properties that demonstrate and tell stories of our rich history as preserved on the landscape of greater Washington, D. C.—a product of long and deliberate planning, design, and construction informed and directed by some of the nation’s best architects and historians. Any new memorials, such as a triumphant monumental arch, deserve the same careful consideration, especially since one could not be completed in time for the literal semiquincentennial celebration of the United States of America.
Thank you for considering our input on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Cheryl A. Schreier
Chair of the Executive Council
Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks
Email: Ed****@********ps.org
Mail: 2 Massachusetts Ave NE, Unit 77436, Washington, DC 20013
Web: www.protectnps.org
Phone: (202) 819-8622
The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks represents over 5,000 current, former, and retired employees and volunteers of the National Park Service, with over 50,000 collective years of stewardship of America’s most precious natural and cultural resources. Recognized as the Voices of Experience, the Coalition educates, speaks, and acts for the preservation and protection of the National Park System, and mission-related programs of the National Park Service. More information can be found at https://protectnps.org
Source: Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks
