Preservation
Partners
The Role of Federal Agencies
Introduction
Passage of National
Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 found most federal
government agencies at a loss to respond to the challenges of
historic preservation, much less prepared to cope with the growing
public interest it generated. Clearly, federal institutions needed
help in meeting the broad historic preservation goals set for
the federal government by Congress in the NHPA.
With passage of the NHPA, Congress made
the federal government a full partner and a leader in historic
preservation. The federal government's role would be to provide
leadership for preservation, and foster conditions under which
modern society and prehistoric and historic resources can exist
in productive harmony. An underlying motivation in passage of
the NHPA was to transform the federal government from an agent
of indifference, frequently responsible for needless loss of historic
resources, to a responsible steward for future generations.
The drafters of NHPA also appreciated that
transforming the role of the federal government would require
a new ethic was needed throughout all levels and agencies of the
federal government. One tenet of the NHPA was critical to this
transformation - Section 106.
Section 106 of NHPA granted legal status
to historic preservation in federal planning, decisionmaking,
and project execution. Section 106 requires all federal agencies
to take into account the effects of their actions on historic
properties, and provide a reasonable opportunity to comment on
those actions and the manner in which federal agencies are taking
historic properties into account in their decisions.
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for more information including working with, and streamlining,
Section 106.
Executive
and Legislative Actions
Over the past 30 years, a number of additional
executive and legislative actions have been directed toward improving
the ways in which all federal agencies manage historic properties
and consider historic and cultural values in their planning and
assistance. Executive
Order 11593 (1971) and, later, Section
110 of the NHPA (1980, amended 1992), provided the broadest
of these mandates, giving federal agencies clear direction to
identify and consider historic properties in federal and federally-assisted
actions. The amendments of the NHPA in 1992 further clarified
Section 110.
As amended in 1992, Section 110 of the NHPA
outlines a broad range of responsibilities for federal agencies.
Section 110 calls for federal agencies to establish preservation
programs, commensurate with their mission and the effects of their
activities on historic properties, that provide for the careful
consideration of historic properties. Section 110 also required
federal agencies to designate qualified Federal Preservation Officers
(FPOs) to coordinate their agency's historic preservation activities.
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for a complete list of Federal Historic Preservation Officers.
In 2003, the Advisory Council on Historic
Preservation published advisory guidelines to assist federal agencies
with real property management responsibilities in preparing the
assessments and reports outlined in Executive
Order 13287 - "Preserve America" (PDF
format). Agencies are encouraged to use the advisory guidelines
as a template to ensure that adequate, complete, and useful information
is submitted to the ACHP.
Today, federal agencies that have major
stewardship responsibilities for public lands and resources, or
have the most frequent, significant effects on historic properties
through federal assistance and regulatory programs, have substantial
historic preservation responsibilities.
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about PDF format, please click
here.
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