Updated April 07, 2013
When you are a member of a special interest group that doesn’t garner a lot of interest in the mainstream press, such as the American cultural resource community, keeping abreast of what goes on in the governmental corridors of Washington DC is difficult. Even when legislative changes are proposed that might seriously impact the resources and livelihoods of archaeologists, architectural historians and other cultural resource professionals, we simply can’t track the what’s going on, without a governmental watchdog. Luckily for us, we have Nellie Longsworth. Ms. Longsworth spent 22 years as president of the Preservation Action, a national grassroots lobby for historic preservation issues. She has also taught preservation courses at Columbia, Harvard and George Washington University. Since her retirement in 1998, she continues her role as activist and advisor for the preservation community, while CEO of the Center for Preservation Initiatives in Washington, D.C. Longsworth has two most useful traits in an advocate of any stripe: her writing style is clear and accessible, and her logic unassailable. The following pages are a verbatim version of Ms. Longsworth’s comments on the House subcommittee meeting for the proposed changes to Section 106 that took place on April 21, 2005. My article on the original discussion was called "United States Cultural Resources Laws in Jeopardy." Ms. Longsworth's comments were prepared for the Society for Historical Archaeology, and I thank Ms. Longsworth and the SHA for allowing me to reprint it here.
As most of you know, the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks held an oversight hearing to discuss a "discussion draft" of amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) on April 21st, 2005. The proposed amendments included a change in procedure for handling owner objection to National Register listing (NR), a requirement that local ordinances have no necessary consequences for properties on or eligible for the NR, the reauthorization of both the NHPA and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), technical changes for the Council, and - the zinger - that government agencies undertaking Section 106 will take into account only those properties listed on the NR or determined eligible by the Keeper.
I want to share with you ACRA's immediate response to the draft which is understandable since the CRM [cultural resource management] businesses would be most jeopardized if the proposed Section 106 changes were enacted. Their target was visits to the National Parks Subcommittee members to support Section 106 as currently administered... "it ain't broke so why fix it." Hopefully, the next wave of grassroots lobbying will include DC visit by SHA members on the scheduled lobbying days or when the GOP introduces a bill containing new changes to the law.
ACRA responded to the "discussion draft" as a call to action and 6 members - Ian Burrow, Karen Hartgen, Lucy Wayne, Tom Wheaton, Julian Adams, and Scott Shull - came to Washington on their own money to lobby the members of the subcommittee prior to the hearing. Targeting GOP members of the National Parks Subcommittee, two days were spent talking to staffs about the negative impact the draft would have on historic preservation and CRM procedures.
The group "walked" a number of bright young staffers through the Section 106 process, insuring that it never terminates an undertaking but, with mitigation, moves forward on a plan agreed to by all parties. Last year, there were 104,000 such undertakings in the federal government and almost all met the 30 days requirement.
