ACRA has joined with other cultural resource organizations to urge Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to protect and maintain Section 106 regulations at the Department, highlighting the “enormous benefits that Section 106 reviews generate for the nation and its states, tribes, communities, and economy, and how implementation of Section 106 has been accomplished efficiently and effectively for many decades.”

The letter, signed by ACRA, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA), comes in response to two Secretarial Orders issued by Burgum that require the Department to review all its policies. In particular,  Order No. 3418 Subject: Unleashing American Energy, directs the Department to “review all relevant internal regulations, policies, and guidance to ensure the lawful implementation of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.”

The letter points out that the Act and its regulations “set forth a collaborative and nationally demonstrated efficient process between the federal government, states, tribes, local governments, communities and the general public whereby the federal government takes into account historic properties impacted by federal and federally sponsored undertakings. It provides a means of ensuring that all stakeholders’ voices are heard, because it is through their involvement that the physical embodiments of American heritage impacted by federal undertakings are identified and considered in federal decision-making.” The letter cites several benefits of the process, including how input from stakeholders can accelerate projects, how it provides a great deal of flexibility to federal agencies.

Read the letter here.