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President Donald Trump is getting rid of members of the federal agency that would have reviewed his planned building projects as he works to physically remake Washington, D.C. Trump fired all members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) on October 28. The commission, a federal agency established by Congress, has shaped the look of the nation’s capital for more than a century, from its museums and monuments to office buildings and parks, and now Trump is set to stack it with loyalists. The CFA was expected to review Trump’s planned White House ballroom and arch monument, but the White House told The Washington Post, which first reported the firings, that the administration is “preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trumps America First policies.” As Trump looks to remodel the White House campus with a massive ballroom where the East Wing once stood and build his own monument in Washington, D.C., amid a wider attempt at expanding presidential power and an ongoing government shutdown, he’s taking over the nation’s capitol’s commission on arts and architecture. Here’s what the commission is and how Trump’s firings fit into a broader strategy to remake D.C. in his vision. What is the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, or CFA? Congress established the CFA in 1910 to “advise the federal government on matters pertaining to the arts and national symbols, and to guide the architectural development of Washington, D.C.,” according to the commission. The scope of its work began first as advising on statues, fountains, and monuments, but it grew by executive orders in 1910, 1921, and 1950, respectively, to include the review of public buildings and park designs in D.C., and the “Old Georgetown” area of Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood. As part of its responsibilities, the independent agency reviews federal construction projects, like the White House tennis pavilion constructed during Trump’s first term in 2019. It was also expected to review Trump’s planned triumphal arch and White House ballroom. The National Capital Planning Commission ultimately approves projects. It is now also run by Trump appointees. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts typically consists of seven members appointed by the president. Members serve four-year terms on the commission without compensation. Who was on the CFA board? The CFA’s most recent members had backgrounds in architecture. It’s members were: Bruce Becker, president of the sustainable architecture and development firm Becker + Becker, who was appointed in 2024 Peter Cook, design principal at HGA Architects & Engineers, who was appointed in 2021 Lisa Delplace, director of the landscape architecture firm Oehme, van Sweden, who was appointed in 2022 Hazel Ruth Edwards, a Howard University architecture professor, who was appointed in 2021. Bill Lenihan, principal and partner of the planning and design services firm Tevebaugh Architecture, who was appointed in 2024 Justin Garrett Moore, program officer for the Humanities in Place program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who was appointed in 2021 Former CFA chair Billie Tsien, whose firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects designed the Obama Presidential Center, was appointed in 2021 but resigned from the commission earlier this year. Former members of the CFA contacted by Fast Company did not respond to a request for comment. What do the CFA firings indicate about presidential power? Trump’s firing of the entire board represents an expansion of executive actions first taken by then-President Joe Biden when he replaced four members in 2021. The White House at the time said the change was made to bring “a diversity of background and experience, as well as a range of aesthetic viewpoints” to the commission. At the time, Luebke, the CFA secretary since the George W. Bush administration, told the Post he couldn’t recall a time a member of the CFA was replaced before their term ended unless they resigned. For Trump, the firings represent just the latest attempt to clear guardrails. The move mirrors his administration’s past actions to similarly takeover other cultural institutions, like the Kennedy Center, which elected Trump its chair in February after Trump named an entirely new board, and the Smithsonian, which is facing a review. It also runs parallel to Trump’s other moves to expand presidential power, including the imposition of tariffs, deployment of troops to U.S. cities, and the bombing targets without congressional approval. How does this fit in with Trumps plans to redesign D.C. architecture? The removal of the CFA board ultimately makes it that much easier for Trump to execute on his plans to redesign Washington, and the firings fit into a larger aesthetic argument by the Trump administration. Trump signed an executive order in August making classical architecture the preferred and default architecture in Washington, D.C. It’s a style whose proponents include McCrery Architects, the architectural firm behind his planned White House ballroom, and Justin Shubow, one of the Trump-appointed CFA members who Biden replaced. Considering the board’s advisory role on on matters of design and aesthetics,” according to its website, the firing of CFA members allows Trump to pack it with like-minded members who share his architectural point of view. In addition to the ballroom, Trump has plans to remake the nation’s capital’s monuments. A statue of a Confederate general that was destroyed in 2020 was reinstated this week in Washington’s Judiciary Square. Trump has also announced plans for the arch near Memorial Bridge. New CFA membership could reduce any remaining friction that would otherwise make Trump’s plans more difficult to execute. How have Trump’s building projects been received so far? Trump’s building projects are off to a rough start, though, even facing criticism from the right. Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan called photos of the East Wing demolition a metaphor, writing that “all this was done without public demand or support, and was done in a way that was abrupt, complete, unstoppable.” And a YouGov poll of U.S. adults found out 53% oppose his demolition of the East Wing, compared to 24% who approve and 24% who aren’t sure; 28% of Republicans also said they oppose the demolition. While the public isn’t yet sold on Trump’s D.C. renovations, his new commission will be. With only allies installed in the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, Trump has made any negative reviews from the agency tasked with advising him even less likely.
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E-Commerce
When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazons chief meteorologist was watching closelynot just for the companys global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act. “As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.” [Photo: Amazon] Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. Its one of 15 massive disaster relief hubs that the company has stationed inside warehouses around the world. In the wake of the record-breaking hurricane that hit Jamaica, with flooding and 185-mile-an-hour winds that destroyed homes and infrastructure, the hub was poised to send shipments to partners like the Red Cross. When the team spoke to Fast Company yesterday, they were planning a potential shipment of power supplies on a cargo plane for today. “Damage assessments are still underway at both of the airports and then they’re going to be prioritizing life-saving, rescue and response teams for access first,” says Jeff Schweitzer, who leads Amazon’s global disaster relief operations. If all went as planned, though, the power systems would also be on a flight, ready to support first responders and “provide augmented power in areas that just simply won’t have power for weeks to come,” he says. Other early shipments will likely include tarps and solar lights that can also charge phones. Each delivery will happen only after nonprofits or agencies on the ground assess the situation and order what they need. “As with everything at Amazon, we work backwards from the customer,” Diaz says. [Photo: Amazon] In the warehouse, some pallets are wrapped in color-coded shrink wrap, to help nonprofits easily tell from a distance what’s inside, such as diapers. One pallet is designed to include everything needed for a nonprofit to set up a mobile office. Amazon first began its disaster relief work in 2017, after conversations with organizations about how difficult it is to get the right supplies quickly after disasters. Since then, it has been closely working with organizations to understand what they need and to track data about what’s used in each event so it can better prepare. [Photo: Amazon] The team works to find the most efficient products to donatefor example, water filters instead of bottled water. “It makes no sense for us to send a whole bunch of water bottles and fly them out to Jamaica when high-efficiency water filters can do 100 times the volume with just a pallet of product,” Diaz says. “These are the kind of items that we’re just trying to be really smart on what is needed and what we’re getting there.” [Photo: Amazon] The hubs, which are each located inside existing Amazon fulfillment centers to make use of the company’s existing infrastructure and workers, are each filled with products most likely to be needed locally. A hub near L.A. is stocked with supplies for wildfires, such as masks. The Atlanta hub has kits for cleaning up homes after a floodfrom gloves and shovels to respiratorsthat have been used in previous hurricanes and events like the floods in Central Texas this summer. [Photo: Amazon] Organizations also make their own preparations; the World Food Programme, for example, prepositioned a shipment of food and other suplies to the area before Hurricane Melissa hit. But Amazon can quickly respond as more is needed, with pallets ready to be sent out as soon as a request comes in. It’s one example of corporate philanthropy that makes use of a company’s core competency, rather than simply giving money to causes. (Amazon also uses its delivery infrastructure to help food banks reach more clients at home.) Toyota did something similar when it donated kaizen training to the Food Bank for New York City, helping cut wait times for dinner from an hour and a half to 18 minutes.
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E-Commerce
A first-of-its-kind refinery has been in the works for a decade and half. Set to be completed this year, the facility is design to produce climate-friendly jet fuel, a material in increasing demand in response to climate commitments and regulations around the world. The refinerycalled the Freedom Pines Fuelswas designed to showcase new methods of producing the fuel, and was receiving government support to help clean up air travel. Now, a year behind schedule due to a hurricane and equipment glitches, the project hit another roadblock this summer, when a major shift in U.S. energy policy under the new administration threw a wrench into the business model. It’s now a story of a company quickly adapting under pressure, and an illustration of the challengesand continued opportunityof clean energy in a more hostile political environment. The goal of the company behind the project, Illinois-based LanzaJet, is to produce a close facsimile of the kerosene-based fuel that powers jets and many helicopters and propeller planes todaywithout using petroleum. Instead, the Freedom Pines Fuels plant in the forest hamlet of Soperton, Georgia, will use ethanol to make whats known as sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. LanzaJet was ready to start with ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane, until a new U.S. law forced a quick shift to midwestern corn. The fuels that make modern travel possiblekerosene, gasoline, and dieselare typically refined from crude oil, rich in hydrocarbon molecules that release copious energy when burned. But burning them also inundates the atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon dioxide. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] SAF is essentially lab-grown jet fuel, made from carbon already in the environment, rather than pumped up from oil wells. It’s a tweaked formulationfor instance, with less sulfurdesigned to burn cleaner. Sugarcane and corn are two of many possible carbon sources, along with cornstalks, twigs, vegetable oil, factory exhaust, and even garbage. The CO2 released by making and burning SAF should, in theory, be offset by the carbon captured to make more SAF, forming a closed loop. The Freedom Pines Fuels plant is a mini version of a typical refinery, slated to produce nine million gallons of SAF and a million of green diesel fuel in its first year. (A standard crude-oil refinery could churn a billion or more gallons of fuels.) But the Georgia plant is meant to be big enough to show the technology can work at scale. “Most process technology companies . . . almost never build plants of this magnitude,” says Jimmy Samartzis, a climate-focused airline industry veteran who became CEO when LanzaJet was founded in 2020. “It’s expensive, it’s big. But we thought and feltaccurately, looking back on it todayit was the right move to make.” Before the 2024 election, the federal government was also promising generous financial support for Freedom Pines. A Potential Market Boom LanzaJet is backed by companies that are counting on, or stand to benefit from, the shift to carbon-neutral jet fuel, including All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Southwest Airlines, and plane maker Airbus. The UNs International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has committed the industry to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition, laws and regulations, such as in Singapore, the U.K., and the European Union, have started requiring airlines or suppliers to blend SAF into the jet fuel supply, beginning at around 12%, then ramping up in later years. More such requirements are in the works in India, Indonesia, and Japan. The European Union is by far the most ambitious. From a mere 2% SAF blend required today, quotas rise steeply about every five years, hitting 70% in 2050. Theres further demand from companies, such as LanzaJet backer Microsoft, striving to meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. In addition to reducing its own footprint, Microsoft has announced plans to buy SAF Certificates,” which subsidize the cost of the fuel to boost its usage. SAF has a long way to go in making a dent. It will account for just 0.7% of all jet fuel in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] Obviously, if you look at the size of the overall aviation fuel space, in theory the [SAF] market is potentially huge for those that can offer a product at a competitive price, says John MacDonagh, senior research analyst at capital markets research firm PitchBook. LanzaJet has raised “approximately” $400 million, according to Samartzis, from these companies and other backers, including energy producers Shell and Suncor, the U.S. Department of Energy, airport operator Groupe ADP, and Bill Gatess Breakthrough Energy fund. Another backer is LanzaTech. Founded in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005, it relocated its headquarters to Skokie, Illinois, in 2014. The company has engineered microbes to convert waste such as carbon monoxide and dioxide from factories into ethanol, as another route to carbon-neutral fuel and other chemicals. In 2010, LanzaTech and the U.S. Department of Energy started collaborating on technology to transform ethanol into jet fuel. In 2020, LanzaTech spun out LanzaJet as a new company to continue the work. LanzaJet is dipping a toe into the SAF market with Freedom Pines, with plans to build more plants, such as a collaboration with British Airways to open a facility in the U.K. by 2028. LanzaJet has also announced partnerships in India, Japan, and Kazakhstan to build additional facilities. But as it continues to announce expansion overseas, things have gotten messy back at home. SAF Meets MAGA
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