Joe Neguse

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the need to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a heated House hearing on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted about his latest renovation project: installing a new blue protective coating on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The New York Times reported on Monday that the Trump administration awarded a $13.1 million no-bid contract to a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings.

Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) grilled Burgum about the no-bid contract during a House hearing on Wednesday.

Burgum said he is familiar that “we’re working on a project to restore the reflecting pool before the summer season with record attendance.” Neguse then asked him to confirm whether he understood that a $13.1 million no-bid contract was awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings.

“I’m positive that we followed all of the required bidding rules. So you’re emphasizing the word ‘no-bid’ like something nefarious has happened,” Burgum responded.

Neguse then explained that in order to grant a no-bid contract, the federal government must show that “any delay would cause serious injury to the government.” He asked Burgum what the “serious injury” would be if the Reflecting Pool renovation was delayed.

“Well, I think we do have a sense of urgency. I mean, we got handed a record amount of deferred maintenance with 19 fountains across the city that didn’t work,” Burgum responded.

Neguse pushed back on Burgum’s suggestion that broken fountains constituted a “serious injury.”

“That’s the serious injury to the government? A serious injury to the government?” Neguse said.

Burgum responded: " I suppose a lawyer could decide that, but I think that maybe all of us could agree that we would want to have our nation’s capital looking great for the 250th and this is a common sense decision."

Burgum also claimed that the company that received the contract has not done work for Trump, despite the president saying last month that he had “a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools” who looked at the Reflecting Pool.

“The gentleman that you’re talking about that has done construction work regarding pools and fountains for President Trump is not part of this contract,” Burgum said.

“He’s just a citizen that cared about it and offered some free advice. There is, there’s nothing there in terms of any dollars flowing to anybody that worked for President Trump,” he added.