Efforts to Gut the National Historic Preservation Act Now Include a Grossly Misnamed Bill Before Congress
By Kurt Stege, Advocacy Committee Co-Chair
Two distinct efforts were described in the September issue of the Advocacy News that would emasculate the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) by: 1) shifting control of District of Columbia federal building projects from the Department of the Interior to the Office of the President, and 2) drastically revising the administrative rules governing the application of the NHPA. Now a fast-tracked bill recently filed in Congress would codify the same consequences. As written, the Orwellian-named “Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026” (BAAJA) would make breathtaking changes to the text of the NHPA.