WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s desire to make the nation’s capital “beautiful again” is a central focus of the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget request for the Interior Department.

The budget, released Friday, calls for $15.9 billion for the department, a $2.3 billion decrease from the fiscal 2026 enacted level. The White House said this decrease accounts for “notional adjustments to reflect the unification of Federal wildland fire responsibilities into DOI for comparison purposes.”

The budget also calls for a $10 billion mandatory fund to establish the Presidential Capital Stewardship Program within the National Park Service. The fund’s purpose would be “to coordinate, plan, and execute targeted, priority construction and beautification projects in and around Washington, D.C.”

This budgetary focus comes as Trump has announced a number of projects to alter the city, ranging from the White House ballroom to a memorial arch near Arlington National Cemetery, which have faced legal challenges.

In a fact sheet on its budget request, the administration said these projects would “improve safety and accessibility, rehabilitate historic buildings and landscapes, and enhance architectural grandeur so that Americans can once again be proud of the Nation’s capital.”

The U.S. Park Police would receive sustained funding for the increased police presence in line with Trump’s executive order declaring a “crime emergency” in D.C.

The request called for a reauthorization of the Legacy Restoration Fund at $1.9 billion a year for the next five years. This fund, financed through money raised from energy development, goes toward deferred maintenance projects on public lands. Authorization lapsed at the end of fiscal 2025, and the request noted the deferred maintenance backlog now exceeds $40 billion.

The budget once again called for the unification of the Interior and Agriculture departments’ wildland firefighting activities under a single agency within the Interior Department. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took steps to establish the agency last year, but during fiscal 2026 appropriations debate there was some resistance to changing the Forest Service’s authority through the Agriculture Department.

The budget also calls for consolidating the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act permitting within one agency in the Interior Department.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of the Commerce Department, and Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service are jointly responsible for administering the ESA and MMPA. The White House said this “has historically resulted in unnecessary red tape, increased costs, and delayed approvals, and produced inconsistent outcomes for permittees.”

The budget proposal calls for $1 billion to fund the restoration of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Under the request, the Interior Department would work with other agencies to improve water flow into the lake and “address toxins in the lakebed outside of any active environmental remediation sites.” The state has set a goal to refill the lake, which has been shrinking because of diverted water, before it hosts the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The budget would eliminate $45 million for the Interior Department’s renewable energy programs, which the administration said “facilitate unreliable energy to the detriment of American consumers, businesses, and communities,” according to a fact sheet.

“This includes eliminating funding that supports disastrous offshore wind energy projects that harm coastal communities, wildlife, and military readiness,” the fact sheet said.

The White House said the budget “refocuses” the Bureau of Reclamation on its “core missions of maintaining assets,” noting that it would eliminate grants for climate studies, water recycling plants and “woke projects” such as lining water canals with solar panels.

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