An advisory council to the Trump Administration is pushing forward a proposal to narrow a federal process that helps protect historic buildings, archaeological sites, and Tribal cultural resources.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, whose members are largely Trump appointees, voted in late July to advance revisions to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Council leaders launched the review earlier this year, they said, to align with the administration's push to streamline regulations, particularly those affecting energy permitting.
Critics say the changes would weaken the law by reducing the role of tribes, state, and local governments in reviewing projects. The proposal would shift much of the consultation to a report drafted by federal agencies, with state offices or tribes commenting on the report, instead of weighing in more substantially throughout the process.
"The [council's] proposed regulations are an affront to Tribal sovereignty," said Ira Matt, an enrolled citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the executive director for the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, in a statement on the organization's website.
"Any effort to diminish our voice or disregard the places, traditions, and practices we hold sacred is egregious and represents a violation of the federal government's trust and treaty responsibilities that is neither morally nor ethically defensible."
Another proposed change would remove natural features such as mountains, valleys, landscapes, and bodies of water from the definition of historic properties, eliminating agencies' obligations to consider adverse impacts to those places under this particular law.
In the Mountain West, Section 106 reviews often come into play when federal agencies or companies propose projects, such as transmission lines, mines, or energy development on public lands.
Holly Norton, Colorado's state archaeologist and deputy state historic preservation officer, said the process often identifies cultural and archaeological sites that were previously not documented.
"We don't always know that all of these archeological sites exist, or these sites haven't really been adequately identified and evaluated by archeologists or by tribal cultural specialists, and so these are the sorts of sites that we can lose in large projects before we even know they exist," she said. "We won't even know that they exist before they potentially get bulldozed."
The board of History Colorado, the state's historical society, also criticized the proposed revisions, saying they "erode the shared national intention of the National Historic Preservation Act."
The proposal is expected to be published in the Federal Register soon, kicking off a public comment period.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado, and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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