House Passes Record-High Funding Levels for Preservation

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $383 billion spending package that includes record-high funding levels for preservation and the endowments, a strong rebuke of National Park Service plans to re-write regulations governing the National Register nominations process, and support for greater diversity in America’s heritage sites. If enacted, the bill would fund seven of the 15 fifteen federal departments for FY 2020, which begins on October 1. Next, the U.S. Senate is expected to pass its version of bills to fund the federal agencies. Without a deal on budget caps, however, a government shutdown is still possible later this year.

The Fiscal Year 2020 Interior-Environment funding bill includes $121.66 million for the Historic Preservation Fund. This represents a $19 million increase over last year’s funding. It is also $88,988,000 more than President Trump requested for the program. According to the bill, the funds would be allocated as follows:

• $53,675,000 for State Historic Preservation Offices, an increase of $4,000,000 above last year
• $13,735,000 for Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, a $2,000,000 increase
• $23,250,000 for competitive grants to document, interpret, and preserve historical sites associated with the struggle for civil rights, an increase of $8,000,000 above the enacted level, including:
  • $17,500,000 for competitive grants to the African American Civil Rights, an increase of $3,000,000
  • $5,000,000 to establish a new civil rights grant program that would preserve and highlight the sites and stories associated with securing civil rights for All Americans, including women, American Latino, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and LGBTQ Americans
  • $750,000 for grants to under-represented communities
• $16,000,000 for the Save America’s Treasures grant program, an increase of $3,000,000 to preserve our nation’s most significant historic and cultural resources
• $10,000,000 for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant program, an increase of $2,000,000

The bill provides $167.5 million for both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

It also includes a $3 million increase for the Bureau of Land Management’s cultural resources management account for a total of $20.303 million. The legislation directs that half of that go toward updating the predictive modeling and data analysis capabilities of the National Cultural Resources Information Management System, which allows for better siting and planning decisions leading to more efficient project implementation.

In a report accompanying the legislation, the House Appropriations Committee expressed concerns with the NPS effort to alter regulations governing the nomination of properties to the National Register. Their concerns echoed many of the issues that the Coalition for American Heritage raised in our comment letter on the proposed rule. The Committee said that it is troubled by the NPS’s failure to consult with other federal land management agencies, state and tribal historic preservation officers, and other key stakeholders during the proposal’s development or conduct required consultation. The Committee urged the NPS to withdraw the proposed rule, consult with key stakeholders on the issues it is trying to resolve, and enter into meaningful government-to-government consultation with affected tribes prior to finalizing changes to the regulation.

The report also directed the National Park Service (NPS) to study Hispanic representation in heritage sites and report back to the Committee within 6 months after passage of the Act.