For 60 years, one simple rule has protected the places that tell our story. Before the federal government builds, funds, or permits a project that could damage a historic neighborhood, a battlefield, a burial ground, or a Tribal sacred site, it has to stop, look, and listen. That rule is Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. It gives neighbors, local governments, and Tribal Nations a say before the bulldozers arrive.
The Senate is now voting on a huge permitting bill, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (S. 5653), and senators chose to keep Title III in it. Title III rewrites Section 106. It drops any required role for the public, removes many federally funded projects from review, and lets a federal official decide, in their “sole discretion,” that other priorities outweigh saving a place. Even when a court finds the law was broken, it could only send the decision back while construction keeps going.
As your constituent, I urge you to vote NO on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (S. 5653). Title III takes away the public’s guaranteed voice in protecting historic places and Tribal sacred sites under Section 106, and a bill that does that should not pass.