As the calendar turns to December and Mariah Carey prepares her annual conquest of our brains, lawmakers are rushing to finish their end-of-year to-do list.

Most critically, Congress needs to avoid a government shutdown on Dec, 20, when the current stop-gap funding plan expires. Although we are already two months into the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, it appears that Congress will punt decisions on the full-year budget until next year. House Republicans, looking forward to taking the reins in the Senate and White House in 2025, want to pass another short-term spending bill before the holidays.

Not surprisingly, Senate Democrats would prefer to lock in spending levels for the rest of the year now, while they still maintain a majority. But with only three weeks of session before Christmas and House Republicans holding firm on not approving appropriations bills, a short-term continuing resolution is the most likely outcome.

This means that decisions on historic preservation and CRM spending – including the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF)  – will have to wait until next year. ACRA and its preservation allies continue to push for higher funding levels to enable S/THPOs to handle Section 106 reviews and other core functions.

ACRA and company also are pushing Congress to reauthorize the HPF, whose authority to collect monies from Outer Continental Shelf drilling royalties expired in September. Although the Fund has plenty of surplus money even without additional funds, the pressure to renew the program has taken on added urgency with President-elect Trump’s announcement of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or “DOGE.” The DOGE’s leaders, Elon Musk and former candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have suggested that Congress should zero out funding for programs that have not been duly authorized by Congress. Although the DOGE itself will lack any official role in government spending, the initiative raises the stakes for programs that Congress has not explicitly authorized.

Even though they are likely to be frustrated on their attempts to pass full-year appropriations bills, Democrats in Congress and the White House remain hopeful they will see more success in getting a disaster relief package attached to a temporary stop-gap funding bill. Last month, President Biden requested $98.6 billion in additional disaster spending, mainly for states affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The preservation community, including ACRA, is pushing Congress to include funding for S/THPOs in the affected states to help with survey and compliance activities, preservation, stabilization, rehabilitation, and repair of historic structures and sites. Final action on the bill is not expected until right before Congress leaves town for the holidays.

This has been a historically unproductive Congress, but there is hope that they can get some things done before adjourning at the end of the year. To borrow from Ms. Carey, all we want for Christmas is funding for historic preservation.

ACHP Releases Revised Housing and Transportation Program Comment

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has released a revised draft of its controversial program comment on housing and transportation.

According to ACHP, the newly named Proposed Program Comment on Certain Housing, Building, and Transportation Activities is intended to “accelerate federal Section 106 reviews of proposed undertakings to rehabilitate existing housing or create new housing in existing buildings, to maintain and update buildings and their immediate environs, and to rehabilitate or create new transportation infrastructure.”

The initial proposed Program Comment elicited 144 written comments from the preservation community and others, including from ACRA. According to ACHP, “in response to the comments, revisions were made to add clarity throughout the document.”

ACRA is carefully reviewing the revised Program Comment. ACHP is accepting comments at [email protected] by Sunday, December 15, 2024.