 Good afternoon, everybody. We are about to get started with the webinar. We'll give it a just another minute for folks to join, but welcome and thank you for joining us today. Great. Well, it looks like we've reached a good number of participants already. Thank you again for joining. My name is Shaw Sprague. I'm the Vice President of Government Relations for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And it's a pleasure to welcome everyone to today's advocacy webinar that we've aptly named Historic Preservation Advocacy in 118th Congress. We have a fantastic group of presenters today from my colleagues in government relations to the National Trust Legal Department and the National Trust Community Investment Corporation. And we're also very much looking forward to concluding remarks from Sarah Bronen, new chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, who will join the webinar toward the end of the program. And again, we appreciate the opportunity to share our insights about effectively advocating for historic preservation priorities in the new Congress and ahead of the first in-person preservation advocacy week since 2020. We look forward to seeing many of you there. First though, I wanted to offer a few introductory notes about the webinar. Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust, and this webinar is made possible by members of the Preservation Leadership Forum. And we want to thank those of you who are with us today. We'll also be accepting questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Zoom Q&A function. And know that you are welcome to submit questions at any point during the webinar, but we will be waiting until the Q&A portion to answer questions. In the meantime, please take advantage of the chat function, communicate with colleagues. And those captioning function is enabled for this webinar. You may enable it and disable it either through the controls at the bottom of your Zoom screen or through your audio settings depending on what version of Zoom you're using. And lastly, following the program, we will send out a recording of today's webinar as well as shared resources directly to the email you use to register. And finally, all Preservation Leadership Forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. So please be sure to take advantage of that great resource. As mentioned previously, we will hear from policy experts about developments around historic tax credit advocacy, the dynamics and priorities of committees with jurisdiction over historic preservation policy, and advocacy and supportive laws that support historic preservation. Again, we're very pleased to close our session with remarks from the new chair of ACHP, Sarah Brunnan, and hear about her leadership and ACHP's legislative priorities for the 118th Congress. So as we are now well aware, the November midterm elections ushered in a divided Congress as Republicans regain control of the House by picking up five seats, and the Senate remained in Democrat control. And the Senate is at 122 to 213 in the House and the Senate's at 51-49 are the ratios. And with such slim majority, the 118th Congress could prove to be very dynamic politically. Considering the last Congress there were two special elections in the Senate and 10 in the House. This slim majority has already had a very real impact to governing in 118th Congress. As we saw, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy's difficult path to victory. This path included making promises about reigning and spending and opportunities to challenge his leadership. This is likely to prove difficult for Speaker McCarthy as he seeks to negotiate with the White House and the Senate. One of the first major tests of the 118th Congress will be negotiations around increasing the nation's debt limit. Reports about when the US will reach its debt limit suggests Congress will need to act as early as June, but likely before the August recess. And with prospects for a budget deal, very unclear, many legislative priorities and the appropriations process will be difficult if not impossible to advance until the debt limit issue is resolved. My colleagues will cover in more detail how preservation issues may be impacted by these new political dynamics and leadership changes to the congressional committees committees that we work with. But I wanted to simply note that partisan politics isn't new. And there really isn't much we're able to do about it. We must continue to move forward on our issues. And remember that historic preservation is supported on both sides of the aisle. So that that is always important aspect of the work we do. Next slide please. That's my pleasure to introduce Mike Phillips, who is the policy director at the National Trust Community Investment Corporation. Mike, thanks for joining today. I'm hoping you can start us off with an overview of where we are with enhancing the historic tax credit incentive. Great. Can you hear me show. Sure can Mike, thank you. Great. Thank you everyone thanks for joining the webinar. Just a quick overview on the historic tax credit, the historic tax credit encourages private investment and historic buildings. It's a 20% credit applied to qualified rehabilitation expenditures for certified historic structures. The 20% credit is distributed over five years so it's a 4% per year credit once the project is completed and placed into service. And to receive the HTC the building must be rehabilitated according to the secretary of interior standards through a part one part two and part three application approval. The historic tax credit is the largest investment in federal investment in historic preservation, and there have been about 48,000 buildings rehab using the credit and it's leverage the equivalent of $200 billion in private investment since its inception in 1978. Next slide please. Next. Okay. So, however, the HTC is facing challenges right now. In 2010, many projects were receiving over $1 of equity for $1 of credit. And now we've seen the pricing of the credits dip by about 25%. The HTC has not been positively modernized since 1986. And so improvements are needed. There's been a number of factors that have created this environment. Starting in probably on 2014, there was IRS guidance on historic Bardwalk Hall, some of you may remember. There was the IRS guidance in 2016 on 50D. This basically outlined how transactions needed to be structured and the result was a loss of value. And then many of you helped to save the historic tax credit in tax reform. And we thank you so much for that because we wouldn't have a credit if it wasn't for your advocacy. And as part of the bill, though, the credit as a cost saving measure, the credit was spread out over five years because of the time value of money, this has impacted the pricing of the credit and the value of the credit and reduced it. And then we had the pandemic slowdown, which there was less investment, less projects getting done, less competition, which which drives down the price. And that coupled with skyrocketing cost of materials and now most recently rising interest rates. So the credit that needs to be improved. And it isn't just a few setbacks, there's been quite a few setbacks over the last 10 years. Next slide. So the historic tax credit growth and opportunity act would address some of these issues. The bill would do five things. The House bill gives a temporary boost to the credit at 30% for all projects. And then there are permanent provisions with the bill the Senate bill will have only the permanent provisions not the temporary boost. The House bill will also have the permanent provisions as well. The first provision would be to make the boost for small projects permanent so a permanent 30% boost to small projects. A second provision would be to reduce the substantial rehab test from 100% of the building's basis to 50%. It will allow more buildings to take advantage of the credit and it will help buildings that are not totally falling apart to use the credit and allow for conversions for things like offices to housing. Something that is very necessary in a post COVID environment. Also eliminate the required basis adjustment right now building owners must reduce a building's basis by the amount of the HTC. This will bring tax benefits to all projects and bring more value to historic tax credits. And lastly, the bill would make it easier for nonprofits to partner with developers and investors to use the HTC many times some of the first projects in a neighborhood are nonprofit projects and very important and right now really only large nonprofit projects can get done. We want to make it easier for nonprofits to use the HTC. So when when can we enact these provisions what are the legislative vehicles that might be moving our best opportunity to get these provisions enacted would be when Congress addresses expired or expiring tax provisions. There are quite a few very popular and very critical tax provisions that have either expired or will be expiring soon, and the list of these expiring tax provisions grows with each passing year. So the opportunity will be in an extender's bill or in a year in bill or before or after the election in 2024. We anticipate that the historic tax credit growth and opportunity act will be reintroduced in early March, fingers crossed. So hopefully we will that bill will be out and reintroduced soon. Next slide. So we ask you please ask your members of Congress to cosponsor the historic tax credit growth and opportunity act, and also ask them to include these provisions in future moving legislation. Mike that's really appreciate your expertise on this and in the details about when we might expect to see legislation and just in time for for advocacy week so thank you for for that work. Now it is my pleasure to hear to bring out Pam Bowman, who leaves the National Trust public lands work, including legislative work on behalf of historic and cultural resources. Pam has been at this for many years and brings excellent expertise as well so Pam, perhaps you can discuss the importance of House Natural Resource Committee to this work and what we might expect this Congress. Thanks Shaw. We can go to the next slide. Thank you. Just before I cover what to expect legislatively and with committee activity in the 118th Congress, I just wanted to note just how many wins were secured in the previous Congress for preserving and protecting historic resources. We celebrated a number of wins on public lands bills, and we'll drop a link in the chat box to our January blog post that covers some of these in more detail. But just a few notes that the Amache National Historic Site Act was signed into law by the President. That designates a new unit of the National Park System for a former Japanese American incarceration facility. And a site that honors over 7500 civilians of Japanese descent who were unjustly and forcibly incarcerated there during World War Two. The National Trust also led a multi-state advocacy campaign that resulted in the passage of the Brown v Board of Education National Historical Park Expansion and Redesignation Act. And after unanimous passage by the Senate and the House, seven new historic buildings associated with the landmark Brown v Board Supreme Court case will now be part of the National Park System in South Carolina, DC, Virginia and Delaware. Congress also included a number of preservation related bills in the FY 2023 omnivist funding package, including provisions of the African American Burial Grounds Preservation Act. And that authorizes the National Park Service in consultation with the National Trust and members of the Black Heritage Community to establish a $3 million annual grant program to aid in preservation efforts of African American Burial Grounds. And that omnivist bill also included the New Philadelphia National Historical Park Act, which establishes that new park unit in the National Park System for the first town known to be platted and legally registered by an African American prior to the Civil War. Also in December, at the end of last year, two additional bills were passed by Congress, the Safeguarding Tribal Objects of Patrimony or STOP Act, which strengthens laws aimed at preventing trafficking and Native American cultural items. And also the Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area Act that authorizes a new study for landscape rich and cultural and historic resources. And also provisions of the National Heritage Area Act are also law, which establishes a national heritage area system and creates a standardized process for the Department of the Interior to provide financial and technical assistance to heritage areas. These bills certainly represent significant wins, not only for individual historic buildings or cultural landscapes but also for policy changes that impact historic preservation across the nation. Three of these bills in particular were featured as hill meeting focus items during our past four conferences in the last Congress and are really a big thank you to everyone who helped amplify those asks and take that message to Capitol Hill. Your advocacy truly made a difference in securing all of these wins last year. Next slide please. So with the change in majority control for the House of Representatives after the midterms, the House Natural Resources Committee sees a swapping of positions at committee leadership with the new committee chairman being representative Bruce Westerman, a Republican from Arkansas, and the ranking member Israel who will have a Democrat from Arizona. And the committee ratios are now established for each of the House committees with 24 Republicans and 20 Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. And as part of the reorganization and change in party control. We saw several of the subcommittees within House Natural Resources have new names and descriptions, including for example the federal land subcommittee which was previously National Parks Forest and Public Lands. Next slide please. These committee ratios that you see here are available online on the committee website but I just wanted to note a couple observations about some of the members on the committee. On the majority side for the Republicans both representative Paul Gosar of Arizona and Representative John Curtis of Utah are returning to the committee after serving in previous Congresses. Representative Curtis as may have you know is the founding member and chair of the conservative climate caucus, which is one of the more outward facing groups of Republicans in Congress that are focused on addressing climate change. The National Trust joined our partner AIA in the last few weeks, visiting with Congressman Curtis and talking to him about climate change as a key priority and ways that building reuse can be climate action and a possible component of future policy proposals. Next slide please. Thank you so much for joining me. The roster for the Democrats and of note here are two members on the Democratic side that are champions for some key preservation legislation in recent years. Representative Grace Napolitano from California, along with Representative Darren LaHood no longer on the committee have led legislation that would designate Route 66 as a National Historic Trail. So there is a general public air Fernandez of New Mexico, champion legislation in the previous Congress regarding the story preservation fund. We can go to the next slide. So as Sean noted, at the beginning of the webinar with the midterm election results and the change in party control for the House. changes in policy focus. And we've seen some of that already begin within the House Natural Resources Committee. One of their first actions was the release of an authorization and oversight memo. And this describes the committee agenda and focus for the upcoming 118th Congress. And of note here, there were several troubling statements in this memo that could foreshadow a little bit some of the committee activity in the coming months. And you'll see a link in the chat there for the memo that you can read more in depth. But just to give you an example, some of the language in here notes that oversight is going to be focused on how laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Preservation Act and others may exceed their regulatory purposes resulting in costly litigation and other adverse consequences to American taxpayers. Some of the other language in here specifies additional oversight on revenue streams for different funds, including the Historic Preservation Fund. And we urge you to read the memo and see some of the direction that this committee may be taking in the next weeks and months. During that February 7 committee hearing, each of the votes on amendments and final passage were all on party lines. Permitting reform has also emerged as a key legislative priority in the last Congress and it'll be a focus of this committee. That momentum continues into early 2023 and just this month the chairman of this committee indicated that one of the first orders of business would be to delve into permitting reform. And by caramel talks with Senator Manchin in the Senate have already begun on this topic and true to his word on some of the first in depth conversations on permitting reform will begin next week in the energy and mineral resources subcommittee. The policy issue really has the potential to impact preservation issues in multiple ways with Republicans criticizing the lengthy regulatory approvals, and even some Democrats saying that some of the lengthy environmental reviews slow the development of clean energy that are critical to addressing climate change. And because this is has emerged as a potential bipartisan focus area with certainly interest from both parties. It is still remains to be seen if some common ground can be found or whether a reform plan will fail as it did last year but in either case the National Trust and our partners are going to be continuing our support for bedrock laws like the National Environmental Protection Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, and you'll hear from my colleague Chris in a few minutes about these laws and some of the ways we're working to safeguard them. Other issues that may come out of this committee include discussions about on and offshore oil and gas. Also discussed in this authorization and oversight plan. And as many of you may remember, the same issue was covered as a topic by the Republicans in the April 2022 hearing on the Historic Preservation Fund and we expect to see more of that. Some other areas where the National Trust and preservation community should also be vigilant are potential proposals that would impact the Antiquities Act that enables presidents to designate national monuments and protect historic sites, and any attempts to oppose mineral withdrawals that are currently preventing resource extraction in culturally important areas. But in addition to playing some defense in the 118th Congress, there's certainly multiple opportunities to secure some additional wins for historic preservation on bipartisan issues. For Route 66, the last Congress bipartisan legislation in the House had a successful hearing passed the committee unanimously. And while it wasn't enacted, that bill has also previously passed a Republican-controlled House and is one opportunity we have to preserve some significant historic sites. In the coming weeks, the National Trust is going to release 37 individualized one-pagers for each of the congressional districts that are bisected by Route 66 so that advocates can share some state-specific examples of historic buildings and iconic Route 66 resources as we build momentum for that legislation. We could also see national monument designations, either from the executive branch or through legislative branch activity. Already, Senators Duckworth and Durbin have reintroduced the Springfield Race Riot National Monument Act, and that would designate the 1908 Springfield Race Riot site as a national monument. I think we'll also add in the chat a link to the comments the National Trust submitted to the National Park Service late last year in support of that designation. And there's a number of other preservation policy issues in the areas of climate change, supporting historic leasing of underutilized federal buildings, federal designations to protect diverse places and appropriations advocacy that have a strong potential to gain bipartisan support and the National Trust has committed to continuing all this work throughout the 118th Congress. And last listed here is one of our top legislative priorities for both appropriations and its reauthorization, and that's the Historic Preservation Fund, where this committee will play a big role. And this is where we will transition to the next speaker who's going to cover the Historic Preservation Fund in some more depth. Thank you. That was a great overview, including important wins for historic preservation and some of the advocacy that we need to do in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you for that. And now I'll turn it over to Lauren Cohen, who is the Associate Director of Government Relations for the National Trust. Previously, Lauren was with the Government Affairs and Grassroots Manager at Americans for the Arts. So we're thrilled to have Lauren on board and welcome you, Lauren, to give us an overview on Historic Preservation Fund. Thank you, Shaw. And thank you, everyone. Looking forward to talking with you about the Historic Preservation Fund today. I know many of you are very familiar with Historic Preservation Fund, but I'd like to give some programmatic and funding background to set the stage a little bit. The HBF is a trust fund at the US Treasury funded by the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Lease Revenues. Pam mentioned that in her last section. But since 1980, $150 million has been deposited annually within that fund and is available for congressional appropriation. The idea was to use revenues generated through the exploitation of one non-renewable resource, which is oil and gas reserves, to protect another non-renewable resource, which is our nation's historic sites. The HPF is uniquely structured and does not use taxpayer dollars. The HPF includes funding for state historic preservation officers, tribal historic preservation officers, and several competitive grant programs that many of you are very familiar with. So let's talk about how the HPF is funded annually and why advocacy for HPF funding is necessary. You may have heard the saying that Congress holds the purse strings of the government and the appropriations process is primarily how that happens. So both the US House and the US Senate have 12 appropriations committees funding everything from defense to rural development to infrastructure and homeland security to the National Endowment for the Humanities National Park Service and the historic preservation fund. Each subcommittee writes the legislation that allocates federal funds to numerous government agencies departments and organizations on an annual basis. So this has to happen every year. So the subcommittees who hold jurisdiction over the Department of Interior and thus the National Park Service and the historic preservation fund is the subcommittee on interior environment and related agencies. I've listed the current members of those subcommittees in both the House and the Senate here. So take a minute to look those over and see if you have a member of Congress listed here. If you do, please note that they hold a good deal of power when it comes to making very early decisions on funding levels for the HPF. Advocating to all members of Congress is very, very important. So I'm not saying that if you don't have a member listed on this slide, they are unimportant. But if you are represented by one of these members, your advocacy for HPF funding is very, very key. So these are the new subcommittee lists as of this new Congress. A good amount of turnover, but we do still see several champions listed here. So it's great to continue that advocacy with those folks. We can go to the next slide. So to give you an idea of how the appropriation cycle carries out here is a typical year and typical really comes with an asterisk because things can change a lot. But for this year, in January and February, we see a new Congress convening and beginning. The speaker is selected. This time it took a little bit longer than usual. The rules are adopted, committees are assigned, and finally the business of Congress commences. In March and April, we'll see the President's budget request released this year. We're expecting it on or around March 9th. So we're watching for that eagerly. Now the President's budget request is just that it is a request. It is not what actually will be budgeted and appropriated for the coming fiscal year. So that still lies with the appropriations committees in Congress. So then the US House subcommittees receive testimony written an oral testimony, they hold hearings and they write their initial legislation. In May and June, the US House full appropriations committee votes on that subcommittee legislation. So it just kind of moves up the chain there. In July we typically see the entire House voting on appropriations packages. And then the US Senate subcommittees receive testimony hold hearings, right legislation that's kind of happening all spring for the Senate subcommittees but we see a lot of activity in July for them. And then of course we see an annual August recess for both chambers of Congress. So that's a really great time to have in district and in state meetings and visits with your members of Congress. In September, the US Senate full appropriations committee votes on subcommittee legislation at the end of the fiscal year is September 30. And then, you know, typically we see the need for a continuing resolution to finish the work of Congress. In October to December that end of year rush, the entire US Senate votes on appropriations packages, final legislation, it goes to conference where they hash out the differences in the House and Senate packages. Final passage happens and then the president signs that those appropriations bills into law. Now this comes with a lot of caveats. Some years, no continuing resolution is required since both chambers have finished their work by September 30. However, this unfortunately is exceedingly rare. In fact, it's only happened four times since 1977. So if no funding bill is passed before the end of a continuing resolution. That's when we see government shutdown. So this is a typical year in the in the appropriation cycle. This is why appropriations really is a year long push. You'll see so much advocacy activity happening in February and March. Of course, we have advocacy week coming up and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But this is when everyone is writing to Congress coming to Capitol Hill to advocate for their priorities in the next several weeks. But you'll see here that this appropriation cycle is year long. So let's we can change the slides and take a closer look at recent funding history for the HPF. As I mentioned, $150 million is deposited annually into a fund at the Treasury, but only in FY 2022 and FY 2023 has the funding for the HPF even met and then exceeded that $150 million mark. The FY 23 final number saw a final funding mark at $204.5 million, which is certainly something to celebrate. It's important to note that the $150 million mark is not a cap. It's just the amount that's deposited every year. So steady growth and funding and continued need among SHIPOs, TIPOs, and the competitive grant programs has yielded a steady increase in advocacy asks for the HPF. You'll note here that the final enacted level for FY 20 was just at $118.6 million. So we've seen a huge amount of growth in recent years showing we showing that we have excellent advocates who have connected with really key congressional champions and change side. Now this chart, this chart shows the most recent breakdown of the components of the HPF. I want to point this out because the new Republican majority in the House, this Congress has stated its desire to cap FY 24 discretionary spending at FY 22 levels or lower. This is in an effort by House Republicans to address spending ahead of an agreeing to a vote to raise the debt limit. If this course of action is followed during the appropriations process, the HPF could see a reduction of over $31 million or more for FY 2024. So this is certainly something to be aware of. But we know that the need is there for FY 2024, the trust and a coalition of other national preservation organizations have agreed to an ask of $225 million for the HPF. You'll see the breakdown of each line item here for the HPF and proposed increases. You know, if Congress intended 50 years ago to fund the nation's historic preservation activities at $150 million. If you adjusted it for today's dollars, it's fair to conclude that Congress intended for investment in preservation efforts to be much, much higher than it's currently funded. The HPF is working to preserve, share and tell more diverse stories, serve broader constituencies and support the histories of intentionally marginalized communities. So again, clearly the need is there can change slides. For the past several years, the National Trust has produced an appropriations report detailing agreed upon acts from a coalition of national historic preservation organizations for the coming fiscal year. We deliver this report to every congressional office on the Hill, including committee staff to provide a clear justification for the increases and needs from the field. It includes HPF asks as well as many other preservation priorities that require an annual appropriation. For example, the forthcoming report will include an ask for the appropriation of the African American burial grounds preservation act. As Pam mentioned, which was passed into law at the end of 2022. This report has become a key advocacy tool for to demonstrate the incredible work happening across the country and the ways in which increased funding could further that work. So our FY 24 appropriations report will be released very soon. And we'll be sure to notify attendees of this webinar when it's available online and we'll be sure to include a link to it in our monthly newsletter. Next slide. Next slide please. Thank you. So federal programs like the HPF have to be reauthorized every so often by the committee of jurisdiction. While the appropriations committee designates the spending levels for each fiscal year the authorizing committee establishes continues or modifies agencies or programs. So the HPF is authorized by the House Natural Resources Committee, and the corresponding Senate committee which Pam gave us great detail about. The HPF current authorization is set to expire this coming September. So reauthorization is a great time to reexamine the terms of the program and how it can be adjusted to better fit the needs of the field. The trust has worked closely with national partner organizations and congressional staff to arrive at our key objectives for this reauthorization. Which are to give a permanent authorization and to to increase its authorization from 150 million to 300 million dollars annually. Key congressional champions in this reauthorization effort include representatives Theresa later Fernandez, Earl Blumenauer and Mike Turner. We've had meetings with congressional staff and many other offices who have expressed their support for the HPF and its reauthorization as well. So stay tuned for more information about the appropriations process as well as reauthorization for the Historic Preservation Fund. Explanation of the details of the details will be so important as we all advocate for reauthorization and funding for HPF this year. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn the program over to Chris Cody Chris is the Associate General Counsel at the National Trust. Chris was previously the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer for the state of Arizona and holds a law degree from the University of South Carolina. Chris, can you please give us an overview of where legal advocacy stands with regard to threats to NEPA and NHPA. Thank you very much for that introduction Shaw. Hello everyone is Shaw said my name is Chris Cody and I'm Associate General Counsel for the National Trust and I work in the area of legal advocacy. We've been alerted by our government relations team that the House Natural Resources Committee has stated that they have an interest in exploring permitting reform, and that they've identified a number of laws that they plan to consider as part of this initiative. While NEPA or the National Environmental Protection Act seems most likely to be their primary focus, the National Historic Preservation Act or NHPA has also been implicated. Both NEPA and the NHPA are laws that the National Trust legal advocacy team regularly work with. We advocate for the preservation of historic resources using both laws, and we've litigated claims arising under both laws, and we regularly participate in the compliance processes mandated by both laws. We are thus committed to the defense of both laws. Next slide please. To provide you with some context for permitting reform as it relates to NEPA, there's already an ongoing effort by this administration to restore NEPA regulations to their historic and most effective form. In July of 2020, the NEPA regulations were severely weakened, including changes that eliminated the requirement to consider cumulative impacts, limited public input, and unfairly skewed the process in favor of private permit applicants. The Council on Environmental Quality or CEQ is currently in the process of restoring the NEPA regulations. Analysis of cumulative impacts is now required again, and CEQ is expected to propose a second round of revisions within the next couple of months. So watch for advocacy alerts, as it will be important for preservation advocates to ensure that the NEPA regulations are strengthened, and consider this context when evaluating any actions by the House Natural Resources Committee concerning NEPA permitting reform. Next slide please. NEPA and the NHPA are both extremely important to historic preservation, and both laws are at the core of our legal advocacy. Now that we've briefly discussed the context for potential NEPA reform, let's talk about the NHPA, which more directly concerns historic resources, and some of the reasons why it's a successful law not in need of reform. For those of you who may not know, in addition to many other valuable things, the NHPA requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings upon historic properties, and undertakings includes the issuance of federal permits. The NHPA is the source of the Section 106 process, and compliance with the NHPA is typically achieved via the successful completion of the Section 106 process. To explain how the NHPA relates to NEPA, while NEPA has a different scope, and NEPA reviews should be conducted concurrently with Section 106 reviews, and Section 106 must be completed before final NEPA decision can be issued. So the coordination of NEPA and Section 106 reviews and how that's accomplished can have a significant impact upon historic resources. NEPA requires the development of project alternatives and an alternatives analysis, whereas the NHPA does not, but those NEPA efforts can help identify opportunities to avoid adverse effects to historic properties in furtherance of NHPA compliance. Next slide please. It's very important to understand that controversial and lengthy Section 106 reviews are the rare exception rather than the norm. Most Section 106 reviews are for minor projects or projects where the avoidance of adverse effects is easily achieved. There are also many agencies that have successful Section 106 compliance programs, proving that the NHPA is not overly burdensome. Federal agencies that are successful at NHPA compliance typically share some common traits. They have highly qualified and well-trained cultural resources staff. They typically initiate outreach and consultation early in the project review process, and they're community and transparent throughout the consultation process. These characteristics usually lead to consistent and systemic agency success. For example, some agencies will begin conversations about projects with key stakeholders in the ACHP at the earliest envisioning stages prior to Section 106 consultation even being initiated. When Section 106 then begins for those projects, the agency already has some feedback to guide their approach, and the consulting parties and ACHP have already had some of their questions answered. This usually leads to effective and productive consultation. Again, some agencies wait to reach out to relevant stakeholders until they've already expended significant resources developing projects or have already reviewed and endorsed the projects of permanent applicants. Those situations can lead to complex and difficult consultations. One of the key attributes of the Section 106 process is that it's just a process, and when it's designed to help produce positive outcomes. The goal of the Section 106 process is for the consulting parties and SHPOs to help the federal agency make the best decision possible by adding their expertise to the conversation. Successful consultations that lead to win-win outcomes are exponentially more common than failed terminated consultations. Memorandums of agreement and programmatic agreements are also widespread tools used by state historic preservation officers or SHPOs to help streamline Section 106 compliance. For example, when I previously worked at the Arizona SHPO office, we executed a programmatic agreement with the Natural Resources Conservation Service that drastically streamlined NRCS's Section 106 reviews with our office. We did that because ranchers in Arizona were having difficulty accessing federal equip grants on the timelines they needed for their ranching operations. Even though the problems causing those delays had nothing to do with Arizona SHPO, the flexibility of the National Historic Preservation Act and the tools that it provides allowed us to be a part of the solution. So again, the NHPA is a very, very, very flexible law and one that typically produces excellent outcomes. Next slide please. In the same way that many SHPOs have executed agreement documents to streamline Section 106, the ACHP has also done so on a national level with the National Trust participation and support. The NHPA specifically provides for the development of program alternatives, including nationwide programmatic agreements, program comments, and even exemptions to help streamline Section 106 compliance. NASA is currently consulting on a nationwide programmatic agreement that would govern Section 106 compliance at all of their facilities. NASA scientific mission and perpetual history making presents a unique preservation challenge. But NASA has approached this initiative with both a dedication to upholding the spirit of the NHPA and a willingness to respond to feedback. The result is a consultation that is positive in tone and on a positive trajectory, and one that will undoubtedly produce an agreement documently that significantly streamline Section 106 compliance for NASA. The ACHP has also recently granted a full exemption to standard Section 106 compliance for GSA, the General Services Administration. The GSA received this exemption with the full support of the National Trust, in large part because the GSA's Historic Preservation Program and Historic Preservation staff are excellent, and we're confident in their treatment of historic resources, even without Section 106 compliance oversight. The National Trust believes that this is a model that other agencies should seek to follow. If you want an exemption from Section 106, build a strong program and hire the right staff to ensure that you're treating cultural resources appropriately. And then the eminently reasonable ACHP has the power to acknowledge your success by granting you an exemption. To the extent that there are any actual problems or issues with the Section 106 process, we're confident that they're not due to the NHPA, which as we have noted is very flexible. Rather, they're caused by resource limitations and other factors that affect the people who interact with the NHPA. The best way to improve the Section 106 process is thus not to amend the NHPA, but to help those who work with it. To the most, SHPO staff are horribly underpaid. These individuals are then often tasked with reviewing multiple projects simultaneously, sometimes representing hundreds of millions of dollars with a private investment. The burden upon them does not align with their compensation nor the value they provided the public, and it is increasingly difficult to find individuals who are willing to commit themselves to such difficult work and relative poverty after they spent years getting advanced degrees. Another issue is that federal agencies are sometimes forced to deal with difficult permit applicants. It is an extremely tough task to coach an unsophisticated permit applicant or an inflexible one through the Section 106 process. This is the source of many problematic Section 106 consultations, and federal agencies need more resources and training to help deal with these types of challenging situations. Lastly, we're hearing that federal agencies are not always able to find qualified candidates for their preservation positions. For example, we often encounter archaeologists and federalals that deal with a built environment, in part because preservation architects are relatively rare. Historic preservation's breadth of scope is one of its greatest strengths, but supporting focused talent development pipelines to produce more candidates suited to Federal Section 106 work would be a far more productive project than any potential amendments to the NHPA. So, in conclusion, there's nothing wrong with the National Historic Preservation Act, and the National Trust is opposed to any efforts to diminish it. The NHPA is an effective and flexible law with a versatile array of streamlining tools contained within it. And if any improvements are sought, providing more support and training to the people who implement it would be the best place to start. The National Trust also supports the efforts of the CEQ to reinstate the NEPA regulations as they were prior to July 2020. And we likewise believe that NEPA in its historic form is a successful and effective law. The National Trust legal advocacy team is committed to advocating in support of both of these laws throughout any conversations about permitting reform and in any venues that present themselves. Thank you very much. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Shaw. Yes, thank you for that articulate recap of NHPA and NEPA and the ways that historic preservation interfaces with both those foundational laws. My pleasure to welcome Sarah Ronan to the program. Sarah is a Mexican American architect, attorney, professor and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well designed and connected places. She was confirmed by unanimous consent by the United States Senate in December 2022 to serve as the 12th chair of the advisory council on historic preservation. Sarah, we look forward to having you on today and thank you for joining. Would you please give us an overview of what you anticipate being key policy priorities for ACHP during your tenure as chair. Great. So thank you very much and I'll have the folks turn to the next slide if possible. So, I just wanted to give a brief overview of us to what ACHP is. First, before I talk more about our priorities this session. ACHP is the federal agency that has 24 members. It has 11 presidential appointees. I am one of them. I'm a public member as chair and the only full time person devoted to the council membership for experts. I'm a tribal member, a governor, a mayor, 10 agency heads and three national organizations including and you see here in bold, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers as well. Next slide please. So our role in legislation is twofold or I guess it's primarily advising the president and Congress on historic preservation policy, including legislation, but also including the range of policies that come out of the executive branch. Part of what we do to fulfill that, I guess, statutory mandate from Congress is that we develop legislative priorities based on our members' consultation and we also vote. So it can't just be the things that I as chair want, it's got to be on our legislative priority list with the council ones. And so as one of 24 members, I'm just one voice. I'm happy to preview today. Next slide. Some of the legislative priorities that we've been thinking about, including some from last year and based on a committee meeting that we had yesterday are likely to be proposed to the membership next week for a vote. So I can't say formally that these are our priorities but I can tell you at least what's come out of the committee meeting. The last five priorities were priorities last year in the last Congress and we expect that these will be continued on in this Congress. So, some of them are pretty broad and pretty pretty basic like supporting preservation friendly programs and funding, just reauthorizing making permanent and increasing the historic preservation fund is a priority that the advisory council help support with other national organizations from year to year. And I expect that we will see that again when the council votes next week as well. These are maybe not always but we've in recent years supported the maintenance and enhancement of the tax credit program. So you've heard a lot about tax credits today. Our role in that is really to just identify them as a good public policy that can support historic preservation as a tool for economic development. And so that has been on our list of legislative priorities for a while. And then the last couple bullet points, the second from the bottom, when it's talking about balancing permitting and streamlining efforts so in the last administration and continuing on into this administration we see efforts to streamline permitting processes to help ensure that both federal agencies and the private parties that they that they license and issue permits to can can undertake their activities. Without so much paperwork. So the advisory council that I think as a whole in general welcomes less less paperwork for all of us. But our role as the agency that is supposed to shepherd historic properties is also to make sure that historic places don't get short shrift in that streamlining process. So we call it we called it last year I believe we'll call it this year of balance between those two priorities. And so when we see legislation that has the goal of cutting cutting process will certainly something we're going to keep an eye on. We also are role in advising other agencies. So this last priority on this slide about fostering stewardship of historic properties on federal lands or under federal management is really helping as an agency that prioritizes historic preservation to those federal agencies that don't have is their central mission historic preservation to make sure that they are incorporating historic properties into their thinking and into their stewardship. Next slide please. New. There you go. Thank you here. Some some maybe differently worded on the next couple this slide and the next slide differently worded bullet points so the first one you'll see is really about climate change. So the advisory council since the last administration has convened a climate climate task force, which is looking at the intersection of all the different policies between climate climate change and historic preservation and setting out through a policy document that's currently in draft, some of the key ways that the advisory council federal agencies, nonprofit partners, and other institutions including states and local governments can help to try to harmonize our goals on climate and our goals in protecting and preserving historic properties. So as that process and developing that climate policy comes to a close, hopefully in the early half of this year, we will be seeking to include that as part of our key legislative priorities. And again, this is the, this is maybe new, and this is in draft and so I'll issue those caveats and say you'll know we'll know for sure next week. So if you've seen this, if you've, if you've seen the CHP present its legislative priorities before. This is just slightly rewarded from last year's similar priority, supporting the designation of protection of historic properties that reflect the full American country. So we know that there are lots of perspectives and preservation that have not been fully articulated and shrined in, in, in formal registers of historic places, and so on and so I think that, you know, thinking about ways, this is project specific site specific proposals that tend to come through Congress thinking about ways that the advisory council can support that full American story being told by testifying and potentially through other means is, is now on our potential list. We also see, we do have a years old policy statement on affordable housing, but the advisory council has also worked in many different contexts on housing issues. And so thinking about how we support community development historic preservation and especially affordable housing, maybe a priority for us, assuming it's included in our vote in next week. And then last slide. So these are a couple. Again, new priorities. We hope to support the digitization and mapping of resources that are subject to the section 106 process that you've that others have touched on today, and the advisory council really does manage and put forth the 106 process. So we know how important it is to keep all of that in order we just hired a digital information officer would, I think, hiring this week that that formally hiring, hopefully this week that person. But we know that keeping all of those historic places properties on or eligible for the national register in order could really help us ensure smooth processes in the future and can also remind us as to where we've where we've been. So digitizing and mapping all those resources that have been a part of section 106 processes are currently a part of those processes is important. Similarly, on our radar screen is expanding survey work of undocumented properties. This does align with the bullet point in the previous slide talking about telling the full American story underserved communities. So looking at how we might expand that survey work and how we might enshrine it in digital means is, again, I think going to be something that we that we end up voting on next week. And then finally, as has also been discussed during this webinar there's a lot of infrastructure projects happening there's a lot of exciting new developments underway, especially after the IRA. We need to make sure as an agency that the historic properties that could be affected by these kinds of activities are well protected and part of that is enshrining in law in legal protections. The fact that these are important to all of us and making sure that they're considered when we're doing these great infrastructure projects because I think it's the view of the agency that both infrastructure and progress and to sort preservation can go hand in hand. So that was just a quick breeze through our slides. Happy to be contacted, you can find all of our information online at achp.org. I'll put that in the chat if I can, and I think I'm going to turn it back over to Shaw so that we wrap up on time. Thanks. Priorities and anticipated priorities of a CHP, and certainly from the National Trust perspective, we look forward to collaborating with a CHP in the months ahead. It does seem like we are at the end of our time but before we wrap up, I wanted to provide some additional information about staying connected to the government relations department's work. Visit the Advocacy Resource Center on forum and subscribe to our monthly advocacy newsletter. And as has been noted in the chat, don't forget to sign up for Preservation Advocacy Week. I believe there's another day to do that, hosted by Preservation Action and NICSHPO, so please take advantage of that gathering if you're able. And thank you to everyone who's attended today's webinar. A special thank you to our speakers, and again to Chair Bronen for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us today. We have questions. We did run short on time. I know we were trying to address those as we went along, but as always feel free to follow up with any one of us, and we'd be happy to address those questions as we can. This is being recorded and will be sent to your emails that you did use to register so we wanted to note that as we conclude. With that, I think we'll close relatively on time. And again, thank you to everybody for joining today. We look forward to seeing many of you in a few weeks. Thanks everyone.