Virginia and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in federal court Saturday in a last-ditch effort to stop the construction of the triumphal arch planned for Memorial Circle in Washington.The Trump administration has said it plans to begin construction of the arch next week, on Nov.5.“The construction of the Arch will inflict immediate and irreparable harm on the District and Virginia,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and D.C.
Attorney General Brian Schwalb wrote in the lawsuit.“The Arch is slated to be built on a busy traffic circle that abuts the border between the jurisdictions, at the center of a historic viewshed, in a river whose environment the District has a statutory responsibility to protect.”“Both the construction of the Arch and the completed monument will disrupt the operations of both jurisdictions, impair their ability to carry out their responsibilities under federal and local law, and require the expenditure of substantial resources to mitigate and address those impacts,” they added.The attorneys general wrote that their request to block construction is urgent.The site of President Donald Trump's planned triumphal arch on the Potomac River near Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial on Oct.
22.Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty“It is entirely foreseeable that, once construction begins, Defendants will argue, as they have done in other cases, that an order halting construction would irreparably harm the federal government, pose security risks, and impermissibly alter the status quo they have unilaterally created,” they said.“The Court should not allow this cynical gambit to succeed.”Jones and Schwalb added that they believe the administration is violating the Commemorative Works Act by bypassing specific congressional authorization and violating the Height of Buildings Act by constructing an arch that’s set to exceed 130 feet in height.
They also alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National...