Historic preservation rule changes threaten more than just monuments

Opinion>Opinions - Energy and Environment The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Historic preservation rule changes threaten more than just monuments Comments: by Sara C. Bronin, opinion contributor - 08/11/26 10:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Sara C. Bronin, opinion contributor - 08/11/26 10:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied

Title: Native American State Park Transfer Image ID: 23244689825236 Article: A large wooden sign that says "Upper Sioux (Yellow Medicine) Agency Historic Site" stands at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls, Minn., on July 28, 2023. The golden prairies and winding rivers of the state park also hold the secret burial sites for Dakota people who died as the U.S. failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans over a century ago — and now their descendants are getting that land back. (AP Photo/Trisha Ahmed)

A large wooden sign that says “Upper Sioux (Yellow Medicine) Agency Historic Site” stands at the Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls, Minn., on July 28, 2023. The golden prairies and winding rivers of the state park also hold the secret burial sites for Dakota people who died as the U.S. failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans over a century ago. (AP Photo/Trisha Ahmed)

The Trump administration finally realized that it would take too long to destroy our nation’s historic landmarks with bulldozers and blue paint. Last month, the federal historic preservation agency voted to completely overhaul its regulations. Contrary to the agency’s congressional mandate to promote the preservation of historic places, this overhaul will threaten historic sites in every community, in every state.

I should know. I was the last Senate-confirmed chair to lead that agency — the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation — and I’m currently building the first public, interactive map of designated historic sites, the National Preservation Atlas. It is heartbreaking to contemplate how much is at risk as a result of this single action.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation administers Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, a regulatory process applied annually to around 120,000 federal agency undertakings, including construction, funding private projects and issuing permits for private parties to extract natural resources from federal land. It requires agencies to stop, look and listen before taking an action that would negatively affect historic properties on or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

The new rules would shrink the scope of protection and will result in the Trump administration being able to greenlight federal permits for surface mining, fossil-fuel networks and other extractive projects. That’s because the new rules would protect only sites that are “geographically compact,” meaning that many archaeological sites, cultural landscapes and areas of historic or religious importance to Indian Tribes, Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives would no longer be protected. Taken to an extreme, we could see a pipeline built across Gettysburg Battlefield.

The proposal doesn’t stop there. Many undertakings currently subject to Section 106 would be entirely exempted. Perhaps the most problematic exemption is for state and local government undertakings, which would allow federally funded state highway construction, local road expansions and other massive infrastructure projects to avoid scrutiny.

We could see the obliteration of neighborhoods at the same scale and speed as the mid-century urban renewal that helped inspire the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in the first place.

Even when projects are not exempt from review, the Trump administration’s action would minimize what counts as a harm. Audible, visual and atmospheric adverse effects on historic sites would no longer be considered.

For Trump’s planned arch, construction noise would be heard for three years, 20 hours each day by the military families grieving their loved ones at Arlington National Cemetery. And the arch’s garishly designed, enormous mass would block the sweeping vistas that have long connected the cemetery to D.C.’s monumental core, a vista that recognizes the significance of our fallen heroes in creating and safeguarding our nation.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation proposal also strikes at the heart of what has made Section 106 so successful: mandatory consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including Indian Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, local elected officials, state preservation agencies and people with a demonstrated interest in the federal undertaking.

Over the years, consultation has yielded positive results, including saving agencies time and money because consultation guides them to avoid and minimize harm to historic sites through redesigns and rerouting. Under the proposed changes, federal agencies could ignore all but a handful of consulting parties, who they would consult at the tail end of the process, after the agency has essentially finalized its plans. Indian Tribes, which through treaties and other sources of law must be treated as sovereign nations, are illegally sidelined.

This proposal is an outsized reaction to frustration with delays that naturally occur when agencies are required to deliberate. There are better, more tailored ways to improve timelines.

As chair of the council, I led the adoption of a reform measure that smoothed the Section 106 process for federal agencies to convert historic buildings to housing, make them energy efficient and integrate renewable energy. We also exempted from review federally funded restorations by Native Hawaiians of properties important to them, including those properties burned in the 2023 fire in Lahaina. These initiatives were carefully calibrated to promote historic preservation and empower Indigenous peoples, while allowing a limited, publicly beneficial set of actions to move forward with expedited review.

The council proposal takes the opposite approach, making it easier to fast-track the most destructive types of projects at the expense of our most vulnerable historic places.

The agency will soon open the proposed regs for public comment, and everyone who cares about historic places should consider commenting to explain what’s at stake, drawing from resources like the National Preservation Atlas and the National Register to identify affected resources. These comments will not likely stop the rules from becoming final, but they can support eventual litigation from groups like the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

We can’t let the nation’s 250th birthday year mark the date we started to turn our back on our past.

Sara C. Bronin is the Freda H. Alverson Professor of Law at George Washington University, the founder of the National Preservation Atlas and the former chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.