D.C. and Virginia Sue to Block Trump's 250-Foot Triumphal Arch
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The governments of Washington and Virginia asked a federal court Saturday to block construction of President Trump’s planned triumphal arch, calling the monument unlawfully tall and asking for injunctions against any site preparation, in what both filed as an urgent last-minute motion. The administration has said work could begin next week, on Nov. 5.
The suit names the National Park Service and the Interior Department. It targets a 250-foot (76-meter) arch for Memorial Circle, a traffic island on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which links the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. As designed, the arch would stand about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty from base to torch, and would rank among the largest such monuments in the world.
The attorneys general wrote that construction “will inflict immediate and irreparable harm on the District and Virginia.” They allege the project will snarl traffic between the jurisdictions for years, produce pollution and stormwater runoff in the Potomac, interfere with emergency services, damage nearby monuments and landmarks, block views, and complicate landings for pilots at nearby airports; the Federal Aviation Administration has found otherwise. The filing also charges that the defendants rushed the project without required consultations under federal and local law.
Three lawsuits now seek to halt the arch. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is separately weighing an order to pause the project until an earlier challenge is resolved, and a hearing in that case was held Friday.
The administration defends the arch as a major tourist attraction, and has also described it as vital to national security, serving as a base for snipers and drones, Axios reported. White House spokesman Davis Ingle called it a monument “going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.”
The city and state ask the court to act before ground is broken, warning that once construction begins, the government will argue, as in other cases, that halting it would cause the federal government irreparable harm.