Is Pressure Legal?

The Three Sisters Bridge--still no more than two piers protruding from the muddy Potomac in Georgetown --was supposed to be part of the federal interstate highway system. But many people in Washington, D.C., including members of the city council and the National Capital Planning Commission feel that the last thing the capital needs is another bridge and its land-consuming approaches. In three years of court battles they have kept the bridge, except for its piers, on the drawing boards.

The project, however, has long been a pet of Representative William Natcher, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for the District of Columbia. A strong pro-highway man, Natcher has effective veto power over all appropriations for the capital. If the bridge is not completed, he has said many times in public, the city's unfinished 98-mile subway system will remain mere holes in the ground without further congressional funding. The subway is desperately needed, and with Natcher twisting his arm, Transportation Secretary John Volpe gave the go-ahead for the bridge in August 1969.

Treacherous Position. The D.C. Federation of Civic Associations went to court, arguing that Volpe had not complied with a battery of federal requirements that must be met before a federally assisted highway can be built. The federation also protested against Natcher's pressure tactics. Last month it won a major victory before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia. By a 2-to-l decision, the court directed that the project be returned to Volpe for restudy.

"Even if the Secretary had taken every formal step required by every applicable statutory provision," Chief Judge David Bazelon declared, "reversal would be required, in my opinion, because extraneous pressure intruded into the calculus of considerations on which [his] decision was based." While avoiding any implication that either Volpe or Natcher had acted in bad faith, Bazelon found that outside influences had put Volpe "in an extremely treacherous position." Though he preferred other grounds for reversal, Judge Charles Fahy agreed; but the third judge, George MacKinnon, dissented, accusing Judge Bazelon of being "overly suspicious" of "socalled political pressures."

The Transportation Department will probably ask for a rehearing by the full court of appeals or seek review by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the decision has surely made some committee chairmen who routinely indulge in power plays a little uneasy.

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