The Arlington County Board in Virginia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Thursday, in an effort to block the construction of the President’s proposed triumphal arch in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, specifically names Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, along with acting director of the National Park Service Jessica Bowron. It comes ahead of a National Capital Planning Commission final vote on the project scheduled for Nov. 5, two days after the midterm elections.
“The Trump-Vance Administration has made it a priority to remake the physical landscape of the Nation’s Capital in President Trump’s image and based on his whims, destroying treasured public spaces in the process,” attorneys for Arlington County wrote in the complaint.
Lawyers for the county also cite concerns around the project’s impact on the county and its residences, as well as on tourists. Arlington County is home to the Pentagon, as well as the historic Arlington National Cemetery.
“It threatens to increase noise and air pollution in Arlington by necessitating the diversion of certain flights into and out of Reagan National Airport,” the lawyers wrote. “Using the Arch to store large stockpiles of ammunition and as a staging point for drones and snipers, so close to commuters and tourists, will dramatically worsen these public-safety harms and the risk of accidents.”
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