 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the forum webinar series. I'm Jim Igo, president and CEO of preservation in Massachusetts, and I'll be monitoring the webinar today. In case you don't know, preservation leadership forum is a professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of preservation leadership forum. So thank you to those members who are participating today. Today's webinar is part of an ongoing series of series focusing on advocacy and preservation policy. This session will focus on advocacy requests for the 117th Congress. I know many are planning to planning upcoming virtual events and visits with Congress so hopefully this information will be useful and informative. Before we begin I have a few technical announcements for the webinar. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Q&A function directly to panelists. You are welcome to submit at any point during the webinar, but we will be waiting until the end of the session to answer questions. You can also communicate to all participants through the chat function. Following the program, we will send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you use to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in the forum webinar library. So now I'd like to introduce the panelists for the webinar today. First, we have Tom Cassidy, Senior Advisor for Government Relations and Policy at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, who will be speaking about FY22 appropriations and funding for the Historic Preservation Fund. Next, Pam Bowman, Director of Public Lands Policy at the National Trust will provide an update on the Public Lands Policy updates and the specific places the trust is working to protect. Following Pam, Patrick Robertson, Principal at Confluence Government Relations will talk about exciting opportunities for advancing historic tax credit improvement legislation for this Congress. And finally, Greg Paxton, Executive Director of Maine Preservation will provide some thoughts about effective preservation advocacy and how Maine Preservation has built support for state and federal historic tax credits. Following all of the presentations, we will open up for discussion for audience Q&A. Don't forget to answer your questions. And here in front of you now on this slide is the agenda for today's webinar. Now, I'd like to turn the program over to Tom Cassidy. Tom. Well, thank you, Jim. So I've been at the trust for a number of years, but if we could just go on to the next slide please. What I want to talk about is the fiscal year 22 appropriations season and give you just a general overview. This is often the case when we are facing a new administration, we have a very unusual budget season. By law, the President is required to submit his budget by the first Monday in February. That very rarely happens. What we are anticipating is that later this month, the administration will submit what is what we call a skinny budget that will have various top line numbers but not a lot of the programmatic detail that we expect in May. For those of you who are, you know, follow these things, you know that we have these things called green books for the Park Service, for example, and the other interior agencies that are more specific and far more descriptive about the programs that the President seeks funding for. Another challenge of this year is that unlike the past two years when Congress had passed a budget resolution that established top line spending numbers that gave explicit direction to the appropriators on how much money they could spend. We don't have that now. And that will occur either by legislative action or there will be what's called a deeming resolution in which the appropriations leadership simply states what the amount of money they're going to be allocating. It will probably be a little bit more than last year, but these things are very, very difficult to judge. What we do expect is that the House will likely mark up their bills in June and followed then by the Senate. But again I would just underscore how difficult it is to predict these things but in terms of what we can do as advocates, it is to present to the members and to the committees what our best recommendations for funding are. Can we go to the next slide please. One thing is that we will be having new leadership on some of the committees. The committee in the House will have chairwoman Rosa Deloro, a Democrat from Connecticut, and then a new ranking and then Kate Ranger of Texas will be the ranking member of more specific interest for our work is the interior subcommittee, and their chair Betty in the column of Minnesota has gone off to run the defense subcommittee and chair Shelly Pingry from the great state of Maine will step in behind her as the chair of the interior subcommittee. Again, we will have David Joyce of Ohio as the ranking member in the Senate the big change of course is that the Democrats are in charge and so we have the same senior Democrat and Republican leadership at the full committee. The interior committee will have a new chair, it'll be chairman Jeff Markley from the great state of Oregon, Lisa Murkowski from the even greater state of Alaska certainly landmass she will continue to be the Republican in charge of the subcommittee. And the next slide please. Certainly one program that all historic preservationist follow with great care is the historic preservation fund, which provides ready the core funding for state and tribal historic preservation officers, and especially in recent years has provided robust funding for a set of competitive branch programs. And due to the engagement of people on this phone on this webinar, and our congressional champions that we've had such a dramatic increase in growth of the HPF. And therefore, we are hoping to actually hit the fully authorized level of $150 million. Now you see here, just how these numbers have increased and also what the request that the trust and other organizations notably nixbow and Nath Po are recommending to the Congress and most certainly the appropriations committees. So we are hopeful that again we will have robust funding. The details of these programs and other priority preservation programs are all available in our third annual report of select preservation priorities for FY 22 appropriations and that will soon be online and you can get a copy of that. So with that, I'll now turn it over to Pam Bowman who's the director of public lands policies for the National Trust. Thanks Tom. We can go to the next slide. We'll wait for it to switch over. I'm going to cover a few of the preservation advocacy priorities in the public land space, and I'll start with another federal funding issue. The National Park Service preserves and protects some of the nation's most iconic historic and cultural resources. But unfortunately, decades of underfunding by Congress contributed to a National Park Service maintenance backlog of nearly $12 billion. The National Park Service has over 40,000 assets in need of repair and about 47% of the backlog is for historic assets. And last year was really a big win for public lands and tackling this issue with the passage and enactment of the Great American Outdoors Act. Trump signed that into law in August of 2020, and it was the largest federal investment in preservation of historic and cultural resources for public lands in our generation. And the bill primarily did two things and on deferred maintenance, it gave $9.5 billion over five years for the National Park Service and other federal agencies to tackle their repair backlog. About 70% of that money went to the National Park Service at about $1.3 billion per year. And the bill also fully funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million annually. Next slide, please. Despite that big win and the money for deferred maintenance in the Great American Outdoors Act, robust annual appropriations are still needed. The Great American Outdoors Act really only covered just half of the $12 billion need and to avoid getting ourselves in a similar situation, strong funding levels are key to catch up and sustain the progress. So I'll call your attention here to one of the preservation priorities in our annual appropriations asks that's also outlined in the report that Tom Cassie just mentioned. And this is annual funding to tackle the deferred maintenance backlog. And really there's the vast majority of deferred maintenance is in funded in three main categories. One is line item construction. And these are the projects that contain major construction or rehabilitation and replacement costing $1 million or more. And this threshold has changed year to year, and the projects list looks out several years and many of these are multi year projects. One example is rehabilitating the elevators and the walkways at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, or another large project at Mesa Verde National Park, dealing with the rehabilitation and stabilization of the chape and Mesa historical buildings located at that site. So the distinction between that and repair and rehabilitation projects is that repair and rehabilitation projects are large scale repair needs. They're infrequent and they are non recurring. And it's where the scheduled maintenance is no longer sufficient and at a lower threshold than the line item construction projects. And finally cyclic maintenance programs are really just the routine maintenance preventive and planned maintenance that the park service needs to maintain those assets and you'll see here. Some of the funding levels from FY 2021 enacted and what our request is for FY 2022. Next slide please. One of the sites that's facing a multitude of challenges including deferred maintenance is the National Mall title basin in Washington DC. In the spring of 2019 the title basin ideas lab was launched, and this multi year effort focuses on rescuing and transforming one of the nation's most iconic memorial landscapes. And there were five landscape architecture firms that boldly and innovatively reimagined that space and both individually and collaboratively developed a series of proposals that launched as part of an online exhibit last year. And you'll see a link here on your screen for title basin ideas lab.org. We encourage you to go there and learn more about the project about a landscape that we hope will include a lot of the input that we've gotten so far, and part of a big part of the project is public outreach and gathering your perspectives as well so if you go to this site and go to the challenges section you'll be able to participate in a short survey and help impact the efforts and the progress of this project. Next slide please. Looks like we have a little bit of a delay there we go. The last issue I'll mention is the recently introduced legislation regarding the landmark Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court case. One of the reasons the National Trust tackle this project is that many in the general public are not aware that the court case was actually a consolidation of five cases, including cases in the communities of South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and Washington DC. This project really provides an opportunity for the public to learn about all of those cases and for us to kind of uplift and share those stories and link the to pika site with some of these other locations. The National Park Service currently manages a site in Topeka Kansas called the Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site. And this new legislation, the Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site expansion act would expand that existing site to include sites in South Carolina, and also establish National Park Service affiliated areas in the other three communities. Next slide. And finally, here's some information on those two bills, you'll see here that the legislation is both bicameral and bipartisan. It's led in the house by majority with Clyburn and co sponsored by the other members of the sites that are being expanded to and introduced in the Senate by Senator Coons of Delaware. I'm very pleased to have 100% participation by the House and Senate offices representing these locations. In addition to Senator Moran from Kansas who represents the existing site in Topeka. In terms of the path forward, we are hopeful that sometime in the spring. We have a lot of discussion in either the House or Senate committees to try to get this legislation advanced to either the House or Senate floor, and we really encourage all of you to participate in this effort. We have both a webinar series that you can check out on our website. And also you'll see in the chat will share a link to where you can send a letter to your member of Congress, asking that they support this legislation as it moves forward. So if we go to the next side. I will now hand it over to Patrick, our next speaker. Thanks Pam, and thank you to Tom and Shaw and National Trust team for having me. And thanks to the hundred plus of you who are on here for listening. I'm sorry to interrupt by apologizing to you all, unfortunately, I am not a slide person. I talked for a living and I unfortunately for you all I do a lot of it, but I don't have slides you have to look at me twice. Once bearded and once not. So it's a good comparison chat for everybody. I'm here to talk a little bit about the federal historic text credit or advocacy, and some of the things that are coming up. I think, as Jim said, and I forgot to thank Jim so thank you Jim sorry. I am the lobbyist for the federal historic text credit coalition. I have my own firm called Confluence government relations and have a few other clients but for today I'm just the HTC lobbyist and I want to talk to you a little bit about what's going on. Let's talk big picture for a minute before we talk about the HTC. What's going on in Washington, as we're talking, the Senate is voting on the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan, which was President Biden's sort of coven relief proposal, it's passed through the house it's in the Senate it's likely to pass the Senate in the next couple of days. So that's something that President Biden said he wanted to do out of the gate. Democrats used a process called budget reconciliation, which allows bills to pass with 51 votes or 50 votes plus the tiebreaker of the vice president through the Senate, So that's what Democrats are doing so this $1.9 trillion package will pass. What's in there you might ask. So there's $1,400 checks for all Americans under a certain income level. There's an expanded child tax credit. There's expanded unemployment insurance benefits. There are their state and local government aid. There's money for vaccine distribution and production and a few other things but it is very much pandemic focus changes to community development tax credits and other tax items aren't in there. So when could we see changes to the federal historic tax. Well, they're just over the horizon and I'm going to sort of walk through a quick history of 2017 through 2021, and I mean really quick to talk about what we know and what's coming up. We all banded together as a historic tax credit community in 2017 during the debate over tax reform and successfully made the case after being bumped out that federal historic tax credits were worth keeping in the tax code. Congress altered the program a little bit but we stayed in and the markets been adjusting to that new program. At the same time the historic test credit coalition sort of retrenched, talked to our friends at the National Trust and next bow and preservation action and other places and talked about what the program really needs. And we've got some proposals for that. Last year, the house passed a bill called HR to, which was also called the moving forward act and this bill had a number of infrastructure priorities infrastructure, everything from broadband to roads to the historic tax credit, frankly, and the provisions that were in that bill really serve as the base for what we're hoping to do this year. Some of them are going to sound familiar and one of them is going to sound a little different. So, let me just go through the provisions that were in that bill last year, and then we're hoping to put in this year and I am on a webinar with Tom Cassidy for the first time in a very long time, which I'm really excited about and I need to quote him here just to remind everybody that the federal historic tax credit is the federal government's single largest investment in preservation every year. It's a billion dollars in federal revenue that goes into preservation, which is a tremendous amount and and really helpful. And so it's a program that's been around since 1986. It took a bit of a haircut in 2017. So what do we want in 2021 what what makes this program back. And so there are four things on a permanent basis that we're advocating for to make the program better, increasing the credit to 30% for projects with less than two and a half million and qualified rehab expenses, making it easier to do small projects, giving them a leg up so that those sort of big picture tax projects that aren't large scale, still get done, making more buildings eligible for the HTC by lowering the substantial rehab threshold. Right. So, in the law, it's called the substantial rehabilitation test. But what it means is you have to spend 100% of your adjusted basis, which either means the property has to degrade to a point where your basis in it when you buy it is very low. Or that you have to spend a really astronomical amount of money to rehab it so now it's really the complete rehabilitation test. Let's make it substantial again at 50%. Increases the value of HTC and clears up some of the tax treatment by eliminated basis adjustment, and then makes the HTC easier to use by nonprofit organizations for things like community health centers, art centers, affordable housing, museums, and a few other things. So those are the four permanent things you've heard about a number of those before. We're still advocating for those. We're also advocating for a bump up in the credit to 30% for five years to help deal with COVID. There have been a number of ill effects in the market due to the pandemic. There are worker shortages, project shutdowns, temporary shutdowns for positive tests, trouble getting materials, trouble financing, changes in financing. All of those things have added up to make the market a pretty unstable place right now. And if you want to sort of supercharge this credit, these are the five things you could do to do so. The coalition is currently in talks with our four champions about potentially introducing a bill with some or all of these provisions in it. We're hoping to get an answer on that very shortly, maybe even as early as late this week. But the most important thing is that we get this right and get everybody on board. So when something moves this year, we have a chance to be in it. So that brings up one other question that I'll answer before I give up the floor here, which is, how does this thing move? What is the vehicle? For those of you who have heard me talk for a while, you know, I talked about an infrastructure package a lot, because Congress talks about an infrastructure package a lot. There's a lot of ideas out there about how to do infrastructure. That moving forward act was infrastructure, we could be in there again. I truly believe that it's a priority of the Biden administration to do something on infrastructure. I believe that if they do something on infrastructure, HTC has a very strong chance of being in there. They will probably start with what was in HR2, which will be great. But at the same time, there are some big political decisions to make in Washington. Is that a partisan or a bipartisan process? Does it start bipartisan and end up partisan? Do you use budget reconciliation again? And a lot of those questions need to be answered. But in the meantime, we're going to do the blocking and tackling to make the most impactful positive changes to the rehabilitation tax credit since tax reform in 1986. I mean, those five things that I outlined would be the biggest expansion this program since it was made permanent in law. And we're closer than ever getting to those. So I'm really excited about that. And I think on the agenda, Greg is next, but I think I'm going to throw it back to Jim for just a minute before we go to Greg, because I think he has something he wants to put in here. Thank you, Patrick. That's great information. I think for all of us who are going to be virtually meeting with staff and members of Congress next week. And, you know, you always give us a good roadmap as we prepare for our work next next week. I, I'd like to stop and just take a couple of minutes and recognize my good friend and yours, Greg Paxton. Greg will be retiring after 13 years at main preservation where during that time, he advanced that organization in so many positive ways. Many of you are aware that Greg has dedicated his entire 48 year career working in historic preservation. He's the CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation from 81 to 2008 preservation administrator for historic Charleston Foundation from 77 to 81. And he also worked in Vermont from 73 to 76. Not only was Greg a professional preservationist is always been a mentor and a man who was always willing to give his time to work with and help others. He's the trustee of the National Trust chair of preservation action and founding chair of the National Trust statewide and local partners affiliate. And the list goes on. When the Northeast statewide's learned that Greg was taking over main preservation. We were all thrilled. It took a good good friend Paul Broone to convince Greg that it would be a great move. And we all know when Paul wanted to see something good happen. He made it happen. I know I can speak for the Northeast directors, and I'm sure all of you across the country, that Greg has been not only a great friend, a fantastic mentor, Greg is someone who can be counted on no matter what. I will miss Greg, as I'm sure so many of you will. He's telling us that in his retirement he and his lovely wife when and the yellow lab Lambert are planning to get in an RV and visit every state park in the in the country. Greg on behalf of all of us, we wish you great health, great happiness, and you deserve all of that. So Greg. Thank you, Jim. I'm for once in my life a little bit speechless here so really, really appreciate your, your very kind words and so on we go. And yeah the best advice I've gotten is for the first year in retirement don't commit to anything. So I pass along that that word of words of wisdom. Ask me to sort of back clean up here and address the small topic of pearls of wisdom about federal advocacy. So let's let's see how we can go here. First of all I want to start out by saying you know we are really lucky that we work in a bipartisan field. We all know it's nearly unique and it remains bipartisan and I think that's a great relief really to all of us frankly but in lobbying we don't count it's all about our Congress people. It's about each of them, but it's a very good thing to start out with as as it's hard to disagree with it. And I think getting in the door early on with a positive comment is the best way you can start a meeting. To establish a connection early on, and this is bipartisanship is a really good way. Try to avoid showing your hand relative to your own views, except when you're confirming theirs. Instead, try to talk the language of the particular Congress person that you're visiting. And watch while you're talking with them whether they appear interested. You know if not move on to your next topic, or ask them a question, but try to get them engaged in what you're saying, try to surprise them a little bit is always helpful. And that is a particularly good time to be establishing rapport with Republicans, actually, for a variety of reasons that we're all very well aware of they need friends, and they're in the minority. But appearing supportive now will be appreciated and may pay dividends down the road. And our role of course is not as judge jury or supreme being passing judgment, frankly, even if you have to hold your nose so, you know, treat them all as as your friend for that moment. And our, our role is to persuade them that our position has merit. But it's also giving them a reason to want to work with with us, or with you, particularly, because most are motivated by relationships. Of course, Republicans never crats don't support us for the same reason. So you really need to distinct appeals. And then within that, you're going to want to have specific variations targeted to each member of Congress that you see, of course Democrats will generally entertain additional federal spending. That's good. Their interest in tax credits might maybe more oriented toward affordable housing than it is to an inner city revitalization than to development per se. It's important that you have examples from your state. If they're representative, hopefully from their district. If it's not from their district from a nearby city or town where people from their district do business. Don't worry about the exact boundaries of their district as much as the region that they represent. But it's great to show pictures of before and afters. The amount of know the amount of investment that went into these projects and the specific outcomes, such as businesses created or apartments developed better yet if there's particular story that they can hang on to is always helpful. If possible, have date data from your state historic preservation office or from the National Park Service on the tax credit status of your state. If your ranking is favorable, you know, be sure to note that that means you get more benefits from this particular program than maybe other states do. And compare the entire budget of your state historic preservation office to the historic tax credits that took place in a given year. Again, if that's favorable, which in most cases it is quite favorable. And that's a good reason for Republicans to maybe be considering increasing that funding that it allows that office to operate better. Section 106 has little or no appeal to Republicans in general and even to some more conservative Democrats. You know, instead stick to the arguments which there's a ROI, a return on investment grant monies less favored by Republicans as well. But if you can show that matching funds were raised at the local level that can capture their interest, particularly if they think about their association with such a project, perhaps bringing some money their way. If you can show support from or better yet have a developer be a part of your team, or do a follow up. That's very helpful with Republicans as well. But developers are not necessarily the strongest advocates for Democrats, unless of course they support them and you know a lot of developers are active in giving political support so do a little bit of research, and many support both sides of the aisle so Of course, the bottom line is they're thinking about how that how this can help them get reelected. Hate to say it sounds cynical of course, a lot of them are very involved in a variety of issues but they also want to get reelected so that can either be by adopting a popular cause, which we are in some areas, more than others, or possibly be by being connected with those who give to reelections, which again, the development community. Be sure to tell everyone that the historic, the federal historic tax credit generates more tax revenues from salaries income taxes from jobs created in particular, plus sales and property taxes. And then it costs the federal government note that the HTC is reviewed by both the National Park Service and IRS, and that all the taxes are paid into the federal coffers, prior to the credits being available. And you may want to note now that the federal credit is paid over a five year period so in essence, the federal government receives this boost the surge from the tax credits upfront, and it pays off slowly over time. Most effective lobbyists are their colleagues. So use them, if you can remind them of the support for an issue that any of their colleagues, preferably from the same party has for a particular item. If their party's leadership is supporting or a leader, even better, that may be a leader they're trying to get to help them in some other way. I'm very specific about goals for each of your congressional representatives in each of your visits. While in Georgia I went to see Newt Gingrich for yet another visit, but this time he was in the capital as minority leader in the house prior to being speaker. We started our typical pitch, and he said, I know all that Greg, what do you want me to do. That taught me a little lesson. And the lesson obviously is go in there with some specific things you want them to do have that done ahead of time, and be selective. If you ask them to do a whole list of things, likely it's likely they're not going to do it. If you ask, but do be specific about what you think you can get from each of them. You may want to ask them to be a co-sponsor of the historic tax credit bill when it's reintroduced. Ask them to write to my now Congresswoman Shelly Pingree. As Tom mentioned, she's now the chair of the Interior Subcommittee on Appropriations. Ask them to join the preservation caucus that's kind of a soft ask, which by the way Shelly Pingree is a long term member. But it's helpful to get them going down the path. So be very specific. One of the things we asked Newt Gingrich that year was to support the homeowner tax credit. Another Georgia Congressman who I am honored to say was was my Congressman John Lewis also supported that bill. If that doesn't show the breadth of historic preservation, I don't know what that what does. And that homeowner tax credit, by the way, did pass both houses, but unfortunately it was wiped out in budget reconciliation, which we now all know much more about. But two quick talking points as I wrap up. Follow up. I had a meeting with a Congressman again, which we tended to do this once a year thing and he said, you know, we hear from you every year and we really enjoy that we hear from the environmental community every week. So think about that. What are ways in which you can follow up and when you ask them to do something, follow up with their staff and see if they've done it. Finally, know what to call them. Some Congress women want to be called Congressman, some chairs want to be called chairman some want to be called chairs, some want to be called chairwoman. Know the specifics about each of your the titles of your people and that will at least not throw them off or let them feel like you're not paying attention when you're in your meeting. So I wish you the best. We've got a great case to make. We all know that. And we have very little support that produces a tremendous amount of good. So I wish you well on your visits and back to Jim, and thank you again Jim. Thanks Greg. That's great information. Thank you to Greg and Patrick and Pam and Tom for for your wonderful presentations. And we're we're here now to answer questions that that you may have submitted. I can't see those questions so I'm going to turn this back over to char and freer and Ronda and see what you've got. Thank you. Thank you Jim. This is Shaw. And I will direct a few questions to the panelists that we've received. But I did want to make note of one comment that we did receive from from Roy Smith. In the comments about an important preservationist that we lost this this past past week, Nellie Longsworth, who, as we all know is a great preservation advocate that had an lasting impact on our field as the first president of preservation action. So so thank you Roy first for for flagging that and Nellie's contribution. One of the questions that came up. This is a question for for Pam. And it has to do with the Great American Outdoors Act. This is a good question for the group. And if you can, you can, you can see in the chat and the Q&A feature the question but the gist of it is how how you were able to and the community was able to navigate the partisan environment in the last Congress to pass a bill like the Great American Outdoors Act. Well, I'll turn it over to you for that question. Well, there's probably a very long answer to that question. I think you may remember on my slide I mentioned that it was both. It was two bills put together. It was both the deferred maintenance side of the legislation and also the land and water conservation fund and full funding for that. There have been people working on some of these issues for years and even decades. And so what you saw with that piece of legislation was the culmination of all of that work, and I think there were very strategic and targeted decisions that were made over a long period of time to make sure that we were working with the broadest coalition possible. Priority for the Great American Outdoors Act was making sure that was bipartisan. And you just heard Greg talk about that being a strength of the historic preservation community to be able to galvanize support both on and off the hill for bicameral and bipartisan bills, and that is a strength. Particularly in the last Congress, we saw a lot of gridlock and there were not a lot of big initiatives and pieces of legislation that got through but I think part of the success for this one was all of those years of advocacy, all of the contributions the preservation community made on research here in Washington talking to people on Capitol Hill. All of that contributed to the success. And I think the second part of the question was when did we know that victory was possible. I think I've shared this on some previous forum webinars but back in the spring, a few of the bill members went to the White House and met with President Trump, who later that day sent out a tweet calling for Congress to pass both the deferred maintenance legislation and the LWCF bill and so we were able to see quick passage in both the House and Senate and got that victory in August. Patrick, I just want to jump in for one second and say, there's nothing partisan about preservation at this point. It's something that, you know, we've long had bipartisan sponsors and as Pam noted, you make choices along the way to make sure you stay bipartisan. And it always puts you in a stronger position in the long run. So I sort of, I wanted to take a sec to commend the community for continuing to make that a priority so that these issues can thrive in any atmosphere. Thank you, Patrick. I do have a question for Tom. And that is, how might the preservation community take advantage of new support for congressionally directed spending, otherwise known as and formerly known as as earmarks. I'm here to testify that earmarks are what made this country great. And the House has stated that there will be they will be looking at community supported projects. That's the new phrase we use for spending decisions directed by individual members. The rules have not been and the policies have not been set by the committees, but I think that each of the subcommittees will have a couple, not a lot, a couple of programs where they will consider these congressionally supported earmarks. And they haven't really announced what they would be. It's my own, my own thought is that for the interior appropriations bill, it'll be a relatively small number. We're not going to be going back to the days where there were, you know, we're half of the Save America's Treasures program, for example, was earmarked. But I do think that it's possible that we could see earmarks for such traditionally earmarked programs that are fairly fairly well vetted with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and probably one of the one or more of the large EPA infrastructure grant programs. I think I saw in the chat, what, what are they being called the term that the anybody, anybody on the hills going to knock is going to know what everybody knows what on your mark is but the phrase that was in the chairwoman Delores statement was community supported projects. So, and I think really it's just to be in contact with with with your first, we need to know what the rules are going to be and to see where these projects may be funded. Tom, we have another question that is best directed to you, I think, from Miguel Asensio, having to do with the underrepresented communities grant. And the question is, is that the need is still very great and resources to conserve preserve and provide additional access. We are at risk of losing critical endangered resources and we continue to grapple with our changing environment. We are losing people in these communities that hold the histories of these communities in their memories and homes, etc. What is the plan long and short term to advance conversations regarding true meaningful inclusivity as one million is barely enough to do much. Maybe you can comment on where we are with that. I'm so glad to have that question. And I would agree that a million dollars is not a lot, but there was no money being directed towards this program, like five years ago, it was a proposal of the Obama Biden administration and their budget, but neither the House nor Senate appropriated any money. We were able to get it into the conference report that was a pretty remarkable bit of advocacy that succeeded in getting a half a million dollars and one of, you know, one of our thoughts were, if we could at least get it started. And a half a million dollars. We got it, and we kept that level. Last year, a couple years ago we got three quarters of a million. And then last year, we got a million dollars if I recall correctly and yes we did. So, and these grants are very popular and they've been funding one of one of the really hardwarming parts of the preservation conference last fall was so many advocates, whether they were properties that recognize Hispanic history or women's history or LGBTQ history. And these are the types of projects that this fund, small as it might be, it's designed to just address the fact that so that so few national register nominations reflect the diverse story of all America. So I could just go a little bit beyond that, and highlight the program that again was a priority of the Obama Biden administration, the African American Civil Rights grants program that has grown significantly over time. What I'm really proud of is that two years ago, with the support of appropriators and with with Mr. Blumenauer, we were and Mr. Turner and other, you know, leaders in the Congress, we were able to expand the African American Civil Rights grants to provide for recognize and fund rehabilitation projects at sites, civil rights sites for all Americans. So these numbers are, they're not enormous, but they have grown significantly over time and they are going for very, very good projects and I would encourage anybody who has a preservation project that would benefit from these to advance it. So thank you for the question and thanks to all for supporting these very important programs that we think as as with Chippo funding. I would also note about equity and inclusion and providing funding for these programs, and I would also note as well that Chippos are very committed to these programs also. And it's why we're trying to get much more robust funding for the entire preservation field through the HPF. Thank you Tom. Another question that I think is is a good question for Greg, and then perhaps Patrick, you could, you could weigh in afterward as well. And that's a question from Martha Harris asking, could you speak to how the programs you are participating would contribute to both historic preservation and affordable housing. And Greg I thought you might be able to speak to the federal historic tax credit but also some of the innovations at the state level with it with the main state historic tax credit. Thank you for Shaw. You know, let me take this minute. I had made a written note on my prepared remarks and I forgot to say it to talk a minute about Nellie Longsworth. And I really feel badly that I forgot that. And thank you Roy for Smith for bringing that up. You know Nellie really was kind of our first lobbyist. She had a lot of conversations and started out doing a whole lot of lobbying in the early days. And she formed this organization and went full speed ahead. Lobby day was really, you know, her baby. And she got more than just Nixpo and the National Trust involved. She got the whole country involved. She had a big board for preservation action. She was a state coordinator in most virtually every state. And, you know, really Nellie I think more than any single person was responsible for the historic tax credit getting put in its almost current form in 1981. You know, by doing a kind of a grassroots movement, what was going on in various states, bringing together that information in the form of notebooks and using that as a way of lobbying. So she really was a major figure in the development of our field as we know it today. The tax credits have been very helpful in affordable housing about half of the credits around the country go to housing that would of course it's always rental housing and a lot of that rental housing is affordable. In Maine, we have a state credit and the state credit is about to go to 35% now for affordable housing and is 25% for for regular projects other projects either regular housing or any other project. So that's that's quite a boost. In addition, Maine has just passed an estate credit for affordable housing, and these all these affordable housing credits the federal and state can be used with the historic preservation tax credit the historic tax credit on a state and federal level so it really provides tremendous leverage and what they've done in our state is focus on the 4% credit because the 9% is very limited because based on on federal appropriations, but the 4% is not limited. The ability to use those more 4% really actually help some projects as much as the 9% or nearly as much so looking on the state level for additional affordable housing, a tax credit to supplement your own. And of course, for a state historic tax credit is also very helpful as now most of the states do have Patrick. Thanks, Craig. I appreciate I think a couple of things. The coalition is working on mapping some of the crossover between the affordable housing tax credit and the historic tax credit. I think we know anecdotally that there are a number of projects, but probably a fairly small percentage who use both credits. One of the other things I will note is that the change in the basis adjustment in the HTC improvement bill would make the affordable housing tax credit easier to use with the HTC because currently low income housing tax credit has no basis The historic has 100% basis adjustment and when you twin them, the low income portion of the project gets saddled with the HTC basis adjustment. So it turns out to be a little harder to use them together than I think we would like. So that's one of the ways that we're looking to increase that. Thank you, Patrick. A question for Pam. And that is, what you foresee for this Congress going forward in terms of how public lands legislation, like the ones you've mentioned and are working on might move in the 117th Congress, whether whether they might move as individual bills, or if you see them as a package, as we've seen in past years. Well, I'll answer with a little bit of a caveat that we're still early in this Congress I think it's been different than other years and that we have a new administration that's getting up to speed. And we had a lot of issues, including impeachment that took up time at the beginning of the Congress. The last few years we've seen both. At the beginning of the last Congress, we saw an enormous public lands package that had a lot of issues that the National Trust and the preservation community advocated for including bills related to the public lands commission that was used by the state judge and the general public. So I think that's one of the ways that we've seen some of those issues. And in addition, in times when we've seen some areas that were similar to the public lands, some of them have passed a veel-git review and one of the other areas that we've seen a lot of issues that have been passed. of saw legislation move on the Route 66 Centennial Commission Act. So we're seeing a mix of both. I think it remains to be seen. I think there's a lot of options. And we've seen in the last few Congresses really a strong appetite in both the House and the Senate to push public lands packages either as a group or individually because they're so bipartisan and because they're very popular with the general public. So we're happy at the National Trust to be playing a leading role in a lot of those bills. And we have several, especially Brown v. Board that we hope will get enacted in this Congress. Thank you, Pam. I have another question for Tom. And then I think we'll need to wrap up. So we'll try to type answers into the remaining questions. But I will leave this question for Tom from Latifah Muhammad. And she is asking about funding for the Civil Rights Preservation Fund and making that available to highlight the history and repurposing of equalization schools, particularly in Alabama and other southern states. But maybe you could speak a little bit more to the Civil Rights Grants and incorporate the forward look to reauthorization of HPF. I think that would be helpful for folks to hear. I think the equal. It's a good question. Boy, and this goes into some of the details of the Civil Rights Grant program. It might be that you have to have a site on the National Register. But I'm just I wish I could tell you for sure. I don't know that I don't have that specific detail. But certainly, if such a school were on the National Register, it would support a nomination for the Civil Rights Grants, as I understand the situation. And then similarly, you might look at the underrepresented communities grant, excuse me, the underrepresented communities grant program, which as one of the observers noted in the chat function, it is small, but it didn't even exist four or five years ago. And I would encourage you to take a look at it. So I hope that helps. And I would encourage participants to follow up with any of the panelists after the webinar for additional details. But now I'll turn it back over to Jim to close us out. Thanks, Shaw. And you had some great questions. So I don't know you've got a you have a keep talking slide up. Here we go. So keep the discussion going on Forum Connect. This is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations happening all week on a variety of topics ranging from section 106 to women's history, history of historic sites. If you haven't joined Connect yet, you should. It's a great place to keep this conversation and start more. Also, don't forget to take advantage of these additional resources on Preservation Leadership Forum. Join us on March 24 for the third part of our title Basin series, this one focusing on memorials and controversy. This should be very interesting, very exciting. So thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar. A special thanks to all of our panelists who did a great job today and for sharing their experiences and their expertise. If you have any questions following the webinar, please don't hesitate to contact us. The email is forum at savingsplaces.org. And I want to get a special thank you to Shaw and Rhonda and Carl and Priya for all the work they've done in making this webinar a success today. And I would say thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day, and we'll see you soon.