Trump EIS rules and HP

[Laurie Sommers]

https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-implements-emergency-permitting-procedures-strengthen-domestic 

I have been trying to keep tabs on impacts to historic preservation. This drastically accelerated timeline will make it impossible to assess impacts on TCPs for example. 

Laurie Sommers, PhD
Laurie Kay Sommers Consulting, LLC
4292 Tacoma Blvd.
Okemos, MI 48864
517-899-6964
email: folkl...@gmail.com

[Jeremy Wells]

Hi Laurie,

Like you, I’ve been closely monitoring any changes, imposed by the new administration, that would affect historic preservation policy in some way. 

The only executive order that I’ve come across is the one you mention that broadly impacts “environmental review” in specific cases. If you read the language and directives related to this order, they barely mention historic preservation, at all, which makes it quite clear that the main target is the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In addition, “Project 2025" only mentions “historic preservation” once and that’s only to describe the NPS’s work. To be clear, by not targeting historic preservation, at all, for change, the authors of "Project 2025" tacitly uphold existing federal preservation policy to be in alignment with their values. (This is very different than NEPA, for comparison.) 

Unlike many federal agencies and offices, historic preservation jobs that are directly related to implementing federal historic preservation policy do not seem to have been affected. The ACHP has retained all of its employees except, unfortunately, a new (in the past year) DEI position that was eliminated. (Sara Bronin, the former Chair of the ACHP, confirmed this in a post to LinkedIn recently.) Staff in the NPS’s Cultural Resources, Partnerships, and Science Directorate who work on National Register nominations, HABS/HAER/HAL, Section 106/110, technical preservation, and tax credit projects don’t seem to have been affected much (or, apparently at all?).

Unlike, say, federal policy around NEPA, the new administration appears to find existing policies (and their implementation) related to the National Historic Preservation Act to be copacetic with its aims, in close alignment with the "Project 2025" authors.

I predict that nothing in this space will be threatened much, if any, in the current administration. Need I say more?

-Jeremy

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