New analysis finds the Lincoln Reflecting Pool accounts for nearly the entire spike in National Park Service “urgent” no-bid contracts

DENVER—A new analysis by the Center for Western Priorities finds that the botched Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool overhaul accounts for almost all of the surge in “urgent” no-bid contracting at the National Park Service under the Trump administration. In the first 522 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Park Service obligated $21.2 million through “urgent and compelling” contracts that bypass competitive bidding. Of that, $16.4 million, or 77 percent, went to two Reflecting Pool contracts: one to coat the pool, and a second for algae treatment.

Setting the Reflecting Pool aside, the Park Service obligated about $4.8 million through urgent contracts this term, slightly elevated from $2.5 million under President Biden and $1.4 million in Trump’s first term over the same 522-day window.

Federal contracting law lets agencies skip competitive bidding when there is an issue of “unusual and compelling urgency” upon which inaction would “result in serious injury” to the government. At the Park Service, that authority has been used in actual emergencies that cannot wait for a months-long bidding process, including a burst water main at Big Bend, a failed generator at Yosemite, and hazardous-material cleanup after the Dragon Bravo wildfire at the Grand Canyon.

Recoating the bottom of a 2,000-foot-long pool on the National Mall does not fit those criteria. It is a long-standing maintenance challenge, and declaring it “urgent” allowed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to skip the competitive bidding that major projects require under federal law and award the contract to a company that appears to have been hand picked by President Trump. Alongside the paint contract, the Park Service awarded a second urgent contract for algae treatment before the pool was even refilled. The pool turned green within days of the renovation’s completion, and the new coating began peeling off the floor.

The recoating contract, $14.65 million to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, is larger than the total of every urgent Park Service contract awarded in the comparable window during the previous two administrations. The algae-treatment contract, $1.74 million to Green Water Solutions, brought the Reflecting Pool total to $16.4 million.

“For years, ‘urgent’ at the Park Service meant what it’s supposed to mean: a broken water line, a failed generator, a wildfire cleanup that can’t wait for paperwork,” said Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Aaron Weiss. “Doug Burgum decided that repainting the Reflecting Pool was an emergency, skipped the competitive bidding process that could have raised red flags over the rush job, and turned the National Mall into a giant green mess just in time for America’s birthday.”

The New York Times viewed government documents that show Park Service staff were aware of cuts in the pool’s expansion joints as early as June 9, a week before the blue coating started peeling off. Burgum has since blamed “vandals” for damaging the pool but has not provided any evidence of this claim.

“The Trump administration operates at the intersection of malice and incompetence,” Weiss added. “Doug Burgum embodies that more than any other cabinet member. Botching a paint job then arresting scapegoats to cover up his failures should be more than enough to cost Burgum his job.”

Key findings

• In the first 522 days of Trump’s second term, the Park Service obligated approximately $21.2 million through FAR 6.302-2 “urgent and compelling” no-bid contracts across 73 awards. The two Reflecting Pool contracts account for $16.4 million, or 77 percent, of that total.
• Excluding the Reflecting Pool, Trump II’s urgent Park Service contracts total about $4.8 million, comparable to Biden ($2.5 million) and Trump’s first term ($1.4 million) over the same window.
• The average urgent contract this term cost $290,281, roughly 11 times the Trump I average ($25,356) and nearly 8 times the Biden average ($38,156). Excluding the Reflecting Pool, the average falls to $67,574.
• The remaining urgent contracts reflect genuine emergencies: emergency water-line and pump repairs, generator rentals during flooding, hazardous-material cleanup after the Dragon Bravo wildfire, and a sewer-line failure at Montezuma Castle. The median urgent contract this term, excluding the Reflecting Pool, was about $22,000.

About the analysis

The Center for Western Priorities analyzed transaction-level federal contracting data from USASpending.gov, drawn from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), covering National Park Service contracts since January 2009. “Urgent” contracts are those awarded under the FAR 6.302-2 urgent-and-compelling exception to competitive bidding, identified by the URG code in the other_than_full_and_open_competition and fair_opportunity_limited_sources fields. To compare administrations on equal footing, CWP measured the first 522 days of each presidency, the length of Trump’s second term as of the analysis date, and counted only contracts whose first action fell within that window. The comparison set is limited to Trump I, Biden, and Trump II. The Obama administration is excluded because the urgency data from that period is not comparable: a 2014 Government Accountability Office report, GAO-14-304, found that roughly 45 percent of sampled fiscal 2010–2012 urgency contracts were miscoded in the federal contracting system, overstating the use of the urgency exception. FPDS issued corrective guidance in December 2014, so Trump I, Biden, and Trump II are all measured after that fix. The underlying data is publicly available through USASpending.gov, and individual contracts can be verified by their award IDs at FPDS and SAM.gov.