"These proposed changes would turn the Act into a relic," noted House Resources Committee Ranking Member Nick J. Rahall (D-WV).

     In the days leading up to an oversight hearing before the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, a wide variety of concerned groups sent letters to Subcommittee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Ranking Member Donna Christensen (D-VI) in opposition to the policy changes. The Subcommittee will meet tomorrow, Thursday, April 22^nd, at 10am in 1324 of the Longworth House Office Building.

     Those contacting the Subcommittee have focused much of their criticism on a plan to amend the Act to allow the federal government, as well as industries receiving federal licenses, to consider far fewer historic properties before moving forward with projects which could destroy those properties.

     "This proposed change says you only have to consider potential damage to the historic properties we already know about. It shuts the door on anything we might not have documented yet," said Rahall.

     In their letter, the Coalition of 9/11 Families wrote, "I can assure you that had it not been for the requirement that ‘eligible’ properties be included in evaluating the effects of those projects on historic resources, the remains of the Twin Towers, most especially the physical remains that delineate the twin tower footprints at bedrock would have continued to be ignored and would have been destroyed."

     Indian tribes are also concerned about the proposal, as the Act is one of the only avenues they have to protect sites sacred to their culture and to their history.

     The United South and Eastern Tribes is scheduled to testify. The organization opposes these policy changes because the Act, as currently written, provides such minimal protection to their sacred places that changing it would have a significant impact on historically important sites or objects that have not yet been discovered.

     In their testimony, they say the policy change, "represents a draconian measure that would strike at the heart of tribal identity, severely undermine the progress made by tribes in recent years to have our sacred places respected and protected, and would represent the single worst piece of legislation for tribal culture since the infamous General Allotment Act of 1887, which resulted in the loss of two-thirds of tribal reservation lands to non-Indian settlement."

     And in their letter in opposition to the policy changes, NCAI Executive Director Jacqueline Johnson wrote, "...some of the provisions will place sacred sites and other places of cultural importance to tribes at risk of potential denigration and destruction."

     During the Act’s nearly 40-year history, hundreds of millions of dollars in preservation funding have been dispersed through a nationwide network of State Historic Preservation Officers to protect and preserve unique historic resources.

     So far, 1.2 million structures, objects, districts and sites have been identified, evaluated and protected because they were significant in the life of this country and the lives of the American people.

     Christensen warns, "This 40-year legacy of vital and effective historic preservation requires that the type of sweeping changes being proposed to the Act be reviewed with great care. The very real concern that such changes may undermine the effectiveness of the Act, and thus threaten this legacy, requires the Subcommittee to set a very high bar regarding these proposals."