A nonprofit group together with two District of Columbia residents filed suit on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking a judge to block the Trump administration’s attempt to remake East Potomac Park and its public golf course.
The complaint names the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service as defendants and challenges actions taken by the administration that followed its cancellation of a long-term operating lease for three public golf courses in Washington, D.C.
Plaintiffs in the case include the DC Preservation League and Washington residents Dave Roberts and Alex Dickson. The suit argues the administration’s reconstruction plans for East Potomac Park - which encompasses the East Potomac Golf Course - run afoul of a congressional act enacted in 1897 that requires the property to be "forever held and used as a park for the recreation and pleasure of the people." The filing says the proposed changes would also violate environmental statutes and risk polluting a park that appears on the National Register of Historic Places.
The legal challenge follows a decision late last year in which the Interior Department moved to terminate a 50-year lease that a nonprofit, the National Links Trust, had been granted in 2020 to operate three public courses in the District. The department said the lease was being ended because the trust failed to make required investments in the properties and did not pay rent. The trust has disputed those assertions, saying it did not default on the lease and that the Interior Department supplied little information about the alleged issues.
The lawsuit frames the dispute as not only a clash over contractual and operational obligations but as a statutory and environmental matter, contending that the administration’s approach would alter the use of land that Congress set aside more than a century ago for public recreation.
The Interior Department declined to comment on the pending litigation, according to local media reports, while stating separately that it would work to ensure the courses are "safe, beautiful, open, affordable, enjoyable and accessible for people visiting" Washington. The National Park Service is a bureau within the Interior Department and is named alongside the department as a defendant in the complaint.
Those behind the legal challenge are seeking judicial relief to prevent the administration from proceeding with reconstruction plans and any related actions tied to the cancelled lease. The filing presses the court to enforce the terms of the 1897 congressional directive and to prevent harm to environmental and historic-resource protections cited in the complaint.
Context limitations: The complaint and public statements cited in the filing provide the basis for the plaintiffs’ claims and the federal agencies’ brief public response. Beyond the assertions included in the suit and the agencies’ terse statements, the record cited in the filing does not establish additional outcomes, timelines or remedies, and the court will determine next steps.