Section 106 is under attack
from three directions at once.
Each battlefront requires a different response—but all three are part of the same fight to preserve the Tribal Nations, affected communities, and the public’s right to know, participate, and be heard before irreplaceable places are harmed.
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The Executive Branch is evading or compressing review for individual projects.
02
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation is attempting to rewrite the regulations that make Section 106 work.
03
Congress is considering statutory changes that could permanently weaken the law.
GUTTING THE REGULATIONS
THE THREAT
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation—the federal agency created to help carry out the National Historic Preservation Act—is pursuing sweeping changes to the regulations governing Section 106. The reported proposals could give agencies greater power to decide whether the public receives notice, narrow the places and harms considered, weaken Tribal and community participation, and reduce the expectation that agencies seek ways to avoid, minimize, or mitigate damage.
These are not technical adjustments. The regulations determine who is heard, what agencies must examine, which places receive consideration, and whether consultation has any meaningful connection to the final decision. Rewriting them could weaken Section 106 for every federally connected project in the country without Congress ever voting to change the law.
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Congress created Section 106 to ensure that federal agencies–under pressure from project proponents–meaningfully consider effects on cultural and historic resources before they act. A system in which the agency controls who receives notice, what information counts, and which effects matter is not meaningful consultation. It is permission for the decision-maker to define inconvenient history out of the process.
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Submit comments during the federal rulemaking process.
Ask your organization, Tribal Nation, local government, or professional association to file comments and speak publicly.
Urge members of Congress to oppose any rule that reduces notice, consultation, public participation, or consideration of alternatives.
Share examples showing how Section 106 improved a project, protected a place, or prevented an avoidable conflict.
Join a Coalition working group supporting research, public education, advocacy, or litigation readiness.
Help fund the legal and technical work required to challenge an unlawful final rule.
WEAKENING THE STATUTE
THE THREAT
Some senators are considering using permitting legislation to rewrite the National Historic Preservation Act itself. Provisions reportedly under discussion could exempt federally funded projects from review, weaken meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and communities, prevent agencies from considering important visual and other effects, impose rigid deadlines, allows agencies to shorten or lengthen deadlines at will, punish State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices for delays they did not cause, shorten the time to challenge unlawful action, and limit judicial review and remedies.
This would not simply accelerate review. It could remove projects from review, silence affected people, make significant harms legally invisible, and allow unlawful permits to remain in effect while the places the law was intended to protect are destroyed.
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A statutory rollback would be harder to reverse than an agency policy or regulation. It would bind future administrations and affect federally connected projects across the country. Congress should not permanently reduce the rights of Tribal Nations and communities through negotiations conducted behind closed doors and without public hearings, evidence, or meaningful consultation with the people who would lose those rights.
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Contact your senators and representative and tell them to oppose any provision weakening the National Historic Preservation Act.
Ask Congress to hold public hearings and undertake meaningful government-to-government consultation before any vote.
Sign and share the Coalition’s Open Letter to Congress.
Arrange a district meeting and bring a specific local example of what could be lost.
Ask elected officials to support funding, staffing, technology, and early coordination—the reforms that can make review faster without sacrificing accountability.
Recruit organizations in your community or professional network to join the Coalition.
Executive End Runs around THE LAW
THE THREAT
Across the country, federal officials are finding ways to build first and consult later. Agencies have invoked “emergency” procedures, narrowed the scope of review, limited public participation, withheld information, and advanced projects before affected Tribal Nations and communities have a meaningful opportunity to respond.
The consequences are already visible—from the demolition of the White House East Wing and proposed transformations of the Kennedy Center and Eisenhower Executive Office Building to the President’s triumphal arch and hundreds of projects being accelerated using the unsubstantiated declaration of an energy emergency nationwide. Once a building is demolished, a burial ground disturbed, or a sacred landscape permanently altered, no later explanation or court ruling can restore what was lost.
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Section 106 works only if it happens before irreversible decisions are made. Executive end-runs convert consultation into an after-the-fact exercise and force communities to race bulldozers into court. They also establish precedents that future administrations could use for mines, highways, pipelines, data centers, transmission lines, federal buildings, monuments, and other projects in every state.
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Report a threatened place or questionable federal project to the Coalition.
Attend public meetings and request consulting-party status when available.
Submit written comments and preserve copies of agency notices and communications.
Share local photographs, histories, documents, and testimony showing what is at risk.
Support organizations pursuing administrative challenges and litigation.
Tell the story publicly—especially when an agency is trying to act before people notice.
One Fight: Three Fronts
The form of the attack may change, but the objective is the same: reduce the obligation of federal agencies to look, listen, and consider consequences before they act. Meeting a three-front attack requires a unified strategy—defending the law in Congress, protecting meaningful regulations, challenging unlawful executive action, and building a stronger Section 106 system for the future.