The Trump administration is quietly moving to revise a decades-old rule governing historic preservation of buildings and landscapes that, if passed, would ease the path for constructing the president’s pet projects in Washington.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), a little-known independent federal agency within the executive branch, is proposing to amend key regulations for implementing the National Historic Preservation Act, CNN has learned.
The 1966 act is the primary federal law that protects historical and archeological sites in the United States. A part of it, Section 106, mandates that federal agencies evaluate the impact of projects on historical properties.
Questions over compliance with this part of the law have been at the heart of legal challenges concerning numerous projects President Donald Trump has sought to push through, including his proposed construction of a ‘triumphal arch,’ putting his name on the Kennedy Center, the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and his proposal to take over the public golf course at East Potomac Park.
But according to an internal email sent last week to ACHP members and obtained by CNN, members are being asked by July 24 to vote on approving changes to rules on how Section 106 is carried out. Critics say the move would curtail the required oversight for projects that could affect sites of historical significance – effectively gutting a significant part of the preservation law.
